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:
- greece.html
- Sleepless by Sara Teasdale
- Tree and Sky by Siegfried Sassoon
- Омар Хайям – Ни к другу не взывай, ни к небесам
- Ольга Берггольц – Сибиринка
- The End Of The Library by Weldon Kees
- Константин Бальмонт – Мы шли в золотистом тумане
- No, Love Is Not Dead by Robert Desnos
- Duns Scotus’s Oxford poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Юлия Друнина – Я не привыкла
- Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee poem – Zameer Careem poems | Poetry Monster
- After Hearing a Waltz poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Astrophel and Stella: I by Sir Philip Sidney
- Montefiore poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- Как тяжело, когда идет война
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
- Федор Сологуб – Я дорогой невинной и смелою
- Федор Сологуб – Я часть загадки разгадал
- Федор Сологуб – Высока луна Господня
- Федор Сологуб – Выйди в поле полночное
- Федор Сологуб – Вы не умеете целовать мою землю
- Федор Сологуб – Всё зеленее и светлее
- Федор Сологуб – Волна морская – веселый шум
- Федор Сологуб – Водой спокойной отражены
- Федор Сологуб – Во внутреннем дворе отеля
- Федор Сологуб – Во мне мечты мои цветут
- Федор Сологуб – Вильгельм второй
- Федор Сологуб – Ветер в трубе
- Федор Сологуб – Веет ветер мне навстречу
- Федор Сологуб – В норе темно и мглисто
- Федор Сологуб – В моём бессилии люби меня
- Федор Сологуб – В моих мечтах такое постоянство
- Федор Сологуб – В моей лампаде ясный свет
- Федор Сологуб – В мантии серой
- Федор Сологуб – В лунном озарении
- Федор Сологуб – В лесу живет проказник неуёмный
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