To make sure
You have not said:
“I love you,”
They smell your breath.
They even smell your heart
Trying times are these, my darling.
They flog love
Tied to the post of the cul-de-sac
We must hide love in the closet.
In this serpentine maze
This crooked cold corner
They feed the fire
With poems and songs
Thinking, too, is risky.
Those who, late at night, knock on the door,
Are there to kill the lamp.
We must hide the light in the closet.
Then there are the butchers
Stationed at all cross-roads,
Armed with a block and a bloody cleaver.
Trying times these are, my darling.
Surgically,
They plant smiles on lips,
And songs in the mouths.
We must hide joy in the closet.
On lilies and lilacs,
They roast the canaries.
Trying times these are, my darling.
Drunk with victory, the Devil,
Celebrates our wake.
We must hide God in the closet.

A few random poems:
- Валерий Брюсов – Июль 1908
- Song—She’s Fair and Fause by Robert Burns
- Two Lacquer Prints poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Алишер Навои – Нет, не от слез кровавых одежда моя красней
- Василий Лебедев-Кумач – Спортивный марш
- Robert Burns: Address Spoken by Miss Fontenelle on her Benefit Night, December 4th, 1793, at the Theatre, Dumfries.:
- An Invitation
- К нам приходит в день февральский снежною тропой
- Love’s Fitfulness poem – Alfred Austin
- World’s Sweetest Sister Of Mine by Miraj Patel
- Song For The Severed Head In `The King Of The Great Clock Tower’ by William Butler Yeats
- Степан Щипачев – По дороге в совхоз
- The Curse Upon Edward by Thomas Gray
- The Emigrant
- Владимир Корнилов – Прямота
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- Parliament Hill Fields by Sylvia Plath
- Paralytic by Sylvia Plath
- Owl by Sylvia Plath
- Ouija by Sylvia Plath
- Night Shift by Sylvia Plath
- Natural History by Sylvia Plath
- Mystic by Sylvia Plath
- Owl by Sylvia Plath
- Mushrooms by Sylvia Plath
- Ouija by Sylvia Plath
- Morning Song by Sylvia Plath
- Night Shift by Sylvia Plath
- Moonrise by Sylvia Plath
- Natural History by Sylvia Plath
- Mirror by Sylvia Plath
- Mystic by Sylvia Plath
- Midsummer Mobile by Sylvia Plath
- Mushrooms by Sylvia Plath
- Metaphors by Sylvia Plath
- Morning Song by Sylvia Plath
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works