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:
- Birthday Love Song by Miraj Patel
- Exodus by Taha Muhammad Ali
- Pan to Artemis poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- Song III: It Grew Up Without Heeding by William Morris
- Омар Хайям – Меняем реки, страны, города
- Альфред де Мюссе – Слова отчаянья прекрасней всех других
- Ок Мельникова – Let it be
- Sunday Morning by Susan King Saunders
- On the Grasshopper (From The Greek) by William Cowper
- Владимир Высоцкий – Упрямо я стремлюсь ко дну
- Sonnet 71: No longer mourn for me when I am dead by William Shakespeare
- Summer Enclosed In A Semi-Dark Cup by Nijole Miliauskaite
- To a Gentleman, Who Married His Cast Mistress by William Somervile
- Владимир Маяковский – Даешь автомобиль
- Robert Burns: Inscription For The Headstone Of Fergusson The Poet:
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
- Hope And Riders
- Do I
- Communal War
- Blank Dreams
- Before
- Again
- A Voice
- A Toast To Nations
- What Of The Night
- Vows
- To Morrow
- The Winged Mariners
- The Watchman
- The Virgin Martyr
- The Vain Question
- The Soldiers Grave
- The Silence In The Church
- The Season
- The Resting Place
- The Old Manor House
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