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:
- An Essay on Man in Four Epistles: Epistle 1 poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- To a Discarded Toast by William Somervile
- Омар Хайям – Не оплакивай, смертный, вчерашних потерь
- Couplet 3 poem – Amir Khusro poems | Poems and Poetry
- Autumn by Ramesh Anand
- Ione, Dead the Long Year poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Monsters under the bed by Thomas J Camp
- Алексей Толстой – Средь шумного бала, случайно
- Yarrow Visited by William Wordsworth
- Олег Бундур – Я несу домой морошку
- Ancient Sins by Satish Verma
- not_love_perhaps.html
- On The Tomb Of A Priestess Of Artemis by Sappho
- Федор Сологуб – Лежу и дышу осторожно
- A Kind of Life by Stanley Wilkin
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 Snow-White Lily poem – Alfred Austin
- A Sleepless Night poem – Alfred Austin
- A Shakespeare Memorial poem – Alfred Austin
- A Royal Home-Coming poem – Alfred Austin
- A Reply To A Pessimist poem – Alfred Austin
- A Rare Guest poem – Alfred Austin
- A Question poem – Alfred Austin
- A Question Answered poem – Alfred Austin
- A Portrait poem – Alfred Austin
- A Point Of Honour poem – Alfred Austin
- A Poet’s Eightieth Birthday poem – Alfred Austin
- A November Note poem – Alfred Austin
- A Night In June poem – Alfred Austin
- A Meeting poem – Alfred Austin
- A March Minstrel poem – Alfred Austin
- A Letter From Italy poem – Alfred Austin
- A Last Request poem – Alfred Austin
- A Fragment poem – Alfred Austin
- A Florilegium poem – Alfred Austin
- A Farmhouse Dirge 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