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:
- houses.html
- On The Nature Of Love by Rabindranath Tagore
- Cinema Therapy and The MovieMaking Process
- Николай Тихонов – Крутили мельниц диких жернова
- Sonet 52 by William Alexander
- Eclogue:–The Times by William Barnes
- Николай Гумилев – Кенгуру
- The Wife Of Usher’s Well poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Валерий Брюсов – Фаэтон
- My rains by Vinko Kalinic
- Looking Across The Fields And Watching The Birds Fly by Wallace Stevens
- Кондратий Рылеев – Палей
- Verses On A Young Lady (playing harpsichord, and singing) by Tobias Smollett
- Владимир Высоцкий – Всё было не так, как хотелось вначале
- Владимир Британишский – В болотах севера Евразии
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 Paralell Between Bowling And Preferment by William Strode
- A New Year’s Gift by William Strode
- A Necklace by William Strode
- A Lover To His Mistress by William Strode
- A Girdle by William Strode
- Yesterday by W. S. Merwin
- Wish by W. S. Merwin
- Whenever I Go There by W. S. Merwin
- When You Go Away by W. S. Merwin
- Vehicles by W. S. Merwin
- Unknown Bird by W. S. Merwin
- The Speed Of Light by W. S. Merwin
- The Source by W. S. Merwin
- The Ships Are Made Ready In Silence by W. S. Merwin
- The River Of Bees by W. S. Merwin
- The Burnt Child by W. S. Merwin
- Term by W. S. Merwin
- Some Last Questions by W. S. Merwin
- One of the Lives by W. S. Merwin
- On the Subject of Poetry by W. S. Merwin
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