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:
- Better Days by Stevens Cadet
- A poem to mankind by Walter William Safar
- Protest poem by Susan King Saunders
- Олег Григорьев – Не свались в колодец, Ольга
- Николай Гумилев – Левин, Левин, ты суров
- A Letter Home by Siegfried Sassoon
- Communal War
- My Mother Would Be a Falconress by Robert Duncan
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песня солдата на часах
- Since That Summer by Mike Yuan
- The Survivor by Primo Levi
- Tumi Sandhyar Meghamala – You Are A Cluster Of Clouds – Translation by Rabindranath Tagore
- Аля Кудряшева – Тяжело деревьям зимой
- We Two—How Long We were Fool’d. by Walt Whitman
- Maternal Grief by William Wordsworth
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
- Николай Заболоцкий – Старость
- Николай Заболоцкий – Старая актриса
- Николай Заболоцкий – Сон
- Николай Заболоцкий – Смерть врача
- Николай Заболоцкий – Слепой
- Николай Заболоцкий – Сказка о кривом человечке
- Николай Заболоцкий – Шакалы
- Николай Заболоцкий – Сентябрь
- Николай Заболоцкий – Счастливый день
- Николай Заболоцкий – Рыбная лавка
- Николай Заболоцкий – Рубрук в Монголии
- Николай Заболоцкий – Разговор с медведем
- Николай Заболоцкий – Птичий двор
- Николай Заболоцкий – Противостояние Марса
- Николай Заболоцкий – Прощание
- Николай Заболоцкий – Приглашение на пир
- Николай Заболоцкий – Предостережение
- Николай Заболоцкий – Поход
- Николай Заболоцкий – Последняя любовь
- Николай Заболоцкий – Портрет
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
