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:
- In The Stilness O’ The Night by William Barnes
- Couplet 11 poem – Amir Khusro poems | Poems and Poetry
- What a Glow Everywhere I see – Aaj Rung Hai poem – Amir Khusro poems | Poems and Poetry
- Федор Сологуб – Ах, лягушки по дорожке
- Robert Burns: She Says She Loes Me Best Of A’:
- The Hip by William Somervile
- Олег Сердобольский – Кузнечик
- Snarleyow by Rudyard Kipling
- Rain all along by Mukeshkumar Raval
- The Unheeded Pageant by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Beggar’s Valentine by Vachel Lindsay
- Владимир Маяковский – Вегетарианцы
- Владимир Высоцкий – Вот, главный вход
- O aye my wife she dang me (Song) by Robert Burns
- Concealment
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
- Playing With Big Numbers
- Percy Janes Boarding The Bus
- One Word
- Once She Dreamed
- O God
- Notebook Of A Return To The Native Land
- Night Words
- Negligence
- Mustard Flowers
- Meditation With Feet
- Love
- Little Talk
- Light The Festive Candles
- Levitation
- Labor Pains
- Labels
- Kalli
- Insect039s Nest
- In This Cul De Sac
- I See Chile In My Rearview Mirror
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