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:
- Ghazal to Pera Belle by Serkan Engin
- MY BEST PAL by Steve Troyanovich
- Валерий Брюсов – Il bacio
- Yours & Mine poem – Alice Fulton poems | Poetry Monster
- Femme Fatale by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Behold, As Goblins Dark Of Mien by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Ольга Берггольц – О, где ты запела
- Владимир Маяковский – За четыре года советской власти… (Главполитпросвет №248)
- Английская поэзия. Айзек Розенберг. Дочери войны. Isaac Rosenberg. Daughters of War
- At Night poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- On a Sea Fight, Which the Author was in, Betwixt the English and Dutch by William Wycherley
- Addressed To Miss Macartney, Afterwards Mrs. Greville, On Reading The Prayer For Indifference by William Cowper
- Dead Orchard by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Address To Kilchurn Castle, Upon Loch Awe by William Wordsworth
- from The Tenth Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke
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
- On Returning To England poem – Alfred Austin
- Off Mesolongi poem – Alfred Austin
- Nocturnal Vigils poem – Alfred Austin
- Nature And the Book poem – Alfred Austin
- Nature And the Book poem – Alfred Austin
- My Winter Rose poem – Alfred Austin
- Mozart’s Grave poem – Alfred Austin
- Mozart’s Grave poem – Alfred Austin
- Messalina poem – Alfred Austin
- Off Mesolongi poem – Alfred Austin
- Mafeking poem – Alfred Austin
- Madonna poem – Alfred Austin
- Love’s Wisdom poem – Alfred Austin
- Love’s Unity poem – Alfred Austin
- Love’s Harvest poem – Alfred Austin
- Love’s Fitfulness poem – Alfred Austin
- Wordsworth At Dove Cottage poem – Alfred Austin
- Winter Violets poem – Alfred Austin
- The Wind Speaks poem – Alfred Austin
- “Why should I, from this long and losing strife ” poem – Alfred Austin
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