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:
- I sink as I sail magnificently by Michael Nikoletseas
- Couplet 11 poem – Amir Khusro poems | Poems and Poetry
- Under A Portrait Of Jukowsky poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Владимир Высоцкий – Грусть моя, тоска моя
- How I saved Planet Earth by Raj Arumugam
- Unknown Bird by W. S. Merwin
- Fake Identity by Roberto Cocina
- Вера Павлова – Удобряю ресницы снами
- Lover’s Gifts V: I Would Ask For Still More by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Return by Sara Teasdale
- How a Little Girl Sang by Vachel Lindsay
- “The lark confinèd in his cage” poem – Alfred Austin
- What Peace Is Like
- Robert Burns: Of A’ The Airts The Wind Can Blaw:
- Иван Мятлев – Падучая звезда
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
- To an Early Daffodil poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- To a Friend poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Thompson’s Lunch Room – Grand Central Station poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Way poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Trout poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Tree of Scarlet Berries poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Temple poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Taxi poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Shadow poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Road to Avignon poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Red Lacquer Music-Stand poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Promise of the Morning Star poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Precinct. Rochester poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Pleiades poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Pike poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Paper Windmill poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Fruit Garden Path poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Forsaken poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Foreigner poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Fool Errant poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
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