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:
- Mulholland’s Contract by Rudyard Kipling
- Yours & Mine poem – Alice Fulton
- Death Stands Above Me, Whispering Low by Walter Savage Landor
- Илья Эренбург – Я так любил тебя, до грубых шуток
- Gehazi by Rudyard Kipling
- How To Get On In Society poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- love_flower.html
- A Whirl-Blast From Behind The Hill by William Wordsworth
- Song—The Tear-drop—“Wae is my heart” by Robert Burns
- Dusk In War Time by Sara Teasdale
- Зинаида Александрова – Лошадка
- Deserted Gipsys Song Hillside Camp
- The Deeper Shadow by Pierre Reverdy
- Dark spring by Yvor Winters
- When I heard the Learn’d Astronomer. by Walt Whitman
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
- The Fascination Of What’s Difficult by William Butler Yeats
- The Falling Of The Leaves by William Butler Yeats
- The Everlasting Voices by William Butler Yeats
- The Double Vision Of Michael Robartes by William Butler Yeats
- The Dolls by William Butler Yeats
- The Delphic Oracle Upon Plotinus by William Butler Yeats
- The Dawn by William Butler Yeats
- The Dancer At Cruachan And Cro-Patrick by William Butler Yeats
- The Curse Of Cromwell by William Butler Yeats
- The Crazed Moon by William Butler Yeats
- The Countess Cathleen In Paradise by William Butler Yeats
- The Coming Of Wisdom With Time by William Butler Yeats
- The Cold Heaven by William Butler Yeats
- The Cloak, The Boat And The Shoes by William Butler Yeats
- The Circus Animals’ Desertion by William Butler Yeats
- The Choice by William Butler Yeats
- The Chambermaid’s First Song by William Butler Yeats
- The Chambermaid’s Second Song by William Butler Yeats
- The Peacock by William Butler Yeats
- The O’Rahilly by William Butler Yeats
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