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:
- The Woman Of His Dreams by Talha Jafri
- Николай Языков – Водопад
- Fragments
- Her Dream by William Butler Yeats
- Dog racing
- Василий Казин – Кирилл и Мефодий
- Spring – The First Pastoral ; or Damon poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Федор Сологуб – Под сению креста рыдающая мать
- Владимир Солоухин – В лесу
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Мелочи жизни
- Lulu by Manolo Arriola
- As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free. by Walt Whitman
- Константин Бальмонт – Морозные узоры
- Ольга Седакова – Неужели, Мария, только рамы скрипят
- IX: Some Verses: This Day Design’d To Spoil The World of Peace by William Alexander
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 A Young Writer by Yvor Winters
- Time And The Garden by Yvor Winters
- The Slow Pacific Swell by Yvor Winters
- The Moralists by Yvor Winters
- The Journey by Yvor Winters
- The Fable by Yvor Winters
- The Empty Hills by Yvor Winters
- Sir Gawaine And The Green Knight by Yvor Winters
- One Ran Before by Yvor Winters
- On A View Of Pasadena From The Hills by Yvor Winters
- Night Of Battle by Yvor Winters
- Much In Little by Yvor Winters
- Moonrise by Yvor Winters
- John Sutter by Yvor Winters
- God Of Roads by Yvor Winters
- At The San Francisco Airport by Yvor Winters
- An October Nocturne by Yvor Winters
- Alone by Yvor Winters
- A Song In Passing by Yvor Winters
- The Tavern by Willa Cather
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