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:
- Lamentations by Siegfried Sassoon
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Чёрный цвет
- Big Grab by Tony Hoagland
- Николай Языков – А. В. Киреевой (Тогда как сердцем мы лелеем)
- Юрий Энтин – Слово про слово
- A Cozy Little Room by Mary Etta Metcalf
- In Praise Of Limestone by W H Auden
- South Africa by Ronald G. Auguste
- Base Details by Siegfried Sassoon
- New Year’s Dawn – Broadway by Sara Teasdale
- Snow Flakes by Tala Bar
- Hymn To Death by William Cullen Bryant
- Prize poem – Amanda James DIll poems | Poems and Poetry
- Владимир Маяковский – Типографы книги делают… (РОСТА №241)
- To The Nile poem – John Keats poems
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
- a_choka_is_a_littoral_drift.html
- the_solitary_oak_on_mount_kremlin_bicetre.html
- the_prison_of_the_past.html
- The Dead Woman by Pablo Neruda, La Muerta
- pathos_is_the_skyward_tanka.html
- nominalism_is_a_liquid_kuhi.html
- eclipse_of_love.html
- divided_passion.html
- death039s_claim.html
- dear_bhikkhu_a_eulogy.html
- as_with_a_senryu_s_hardening_ridge.html
- A Gogyohka and the Forgotten Panopticon
- a_faded_postcard_is_a_tanka_daydream.html
- krishna039s_advice_to_arjuna.html
- krishna039s_advice_to_arjuna.html
- Exodus by Michael Nikoletseas
- Saint George the Dragon by Michael Nikoletseas
- heal_me_slowly.html
- gazebo.html
- all-days-seem-same.html
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
