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:
- from In Time of War by W H Auden
- Penmaen Pool poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The First Part: Sonnet 4 – Fair is my yoke, though grievous be my pains, by William Drummond
- Only Iraq by Mahmoud Darwish
- Green Notes by Mrunmayi Mandan
- Melmillo by Walter de la Mare
- Under The Round Tower by William Butler Yeats
- E-waste by Nisha Gopalakrishnan
- Олег Бундур – Дождь
- The Gardener LXIX: I Hunt for the Golden Stag by Rabindranath Tagore
- Владимир Маяковский – Старый мотив (РОСТА №137)
- Омар Хайям – Кумир мой, вылепил тебя таким гончар
- “I Know The Stars” by Sara Teasdale
- Translations Dante Inferno Canto Xxvi
- Universal Prayer poem – Alexander Pope
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
- Sonnet LI by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet L by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet IX by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet IV: Unthrifty Loveliness, Why Dost Thou Spend by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet IV by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet III: Look In Thy Glass, and Tell the Face Thou Viewest by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet III by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet II: When Forty Winters Shall Besiege Thy Brow by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet II by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet I: From Fairest Creatures We Desire Increase by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet I by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXXXVIII by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXXXVII by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXXXVI by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXXXV by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXXXIX by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXXXIV by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXXXIII by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXXXII by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXXXI by William Shakespeare
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