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:
- Валерий Брюсов – Дрожащие листья на бледные щеки
- Зинаида Александрова – Венок
- Константин Бальмонт – Если грустно тебе
- The Song of the Little Hunter by Rudyard Kipling
- Sergei Esenin (Serguei Yesenin, Sergueï Essénine) – Sounds of Sorrow
- Light The Festive Candles
- Joy, Shipmate, Joy! by Walt Whitman
- Robert Burns: On The Seas And Far Away:
- A Dialogue Betwixt Himself and Mistress Eliza Wheeler, under the Name of Amarillis by Robert Herrick
- Synchronicity by Marina Cecilia Kohon
- Ianthe’s Question by Walter Savage Landor
- Ghazal by Agha Shahid Ali
- The Breaking Point by Stephen Vincent Benet
- The Palace
- Ghouls parade poem – Brako Attafua poems | Poetry Monster
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
- Reason Use It Divine Matters
- Reason The Use Of It In Divine Matters
- Platonick Love
- On The Death Of Sir Henry Wootton
- On The Death Of Mr William Hervey
- On The Death Of Mr Crashaw
- Of Wit
- Not Fair
- Life
- Hymn To Light
- Hymn Light
- Epitaph
- Despair
- Death Sir Henry Wootton
- Davideis Sacred Poem Troubles David Excerpt
- Davideis A Sacred Poem Of The Troubles Of David Excerpt
- Cousel
- Constantias Song
- Constantia039s Song
- Concealment
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