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:
- Михаил Лермонтов – Что толку жить!.. Без приключений
- On Seeing The Elgin Marbles For The First Time poem – John Keats poems
- Untitled XI by Yunus Emre
- English Poetry. Philip James Bailey. Festus – 26. Филип Джеймс Бэйли.
- Idylls of the King: The Passing of Arthur (excerpt) poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Огюст Барбье – Мельпомена
- When I heard at the Close of the Day. by Walt Whitman
- As One Who Having Wandered All Night Long by Robert Louis Stevenson
- O fortunatus nimium, etc., a translation out of Virgil by Abraham Cowley
- Start Growing by Rixa White
- Валерий Брюсов – Испанская песенка
- Омар Хайям – Не бойтесь дарить согревающих слов
- At the Party by W H Auden
- The Rose Tree by William Butler Yeats
- Sonnet Xii
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
- Recollection
- Practising The Anthem
- Practising Anthem
- Peace
- On Australian Hills
- Mirage
- Memoriam
- Mates
- Lord Nevils Advice
- Lord Nevil039s Advice
- Looking In The Fire
- Looking Fire
- Learn
- Last Battle Cid
- Influence
- Individuality
- In Memoriam
- Honour
- Home Sick
- Holy Communion
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