Because life’s too short to blush,
I keep my blood tucked in.
I won’t be mortified
by what I drive or the flaccid
vivacity of my last dinner party.
I take my cue from statues posing only
in their shoulder pads of snow: all January
you can see them working on their granite tans.
That I woke at an ungainly hour,
stripped of the merchandise that clothed me,
distilled to pure suchness,
means not enough to anyone for me
to confess. I do not suffer
from the excess of taste
that spells embarrassment:
mothers who find their kids unseemly
in their condom earrings,
girls cringing to think
they could be frumpish as their mothers.
Though the late nonerotic Elvis
in his studded gut of jumpsuit
made everybody squeamish, I admit.
Rule one: the King must not elicit pity.
Was the audience afraid of being tainted
–this might rub off on me–
or were they–surrendering–
what a femme word–feeling
solicitous–glimpsing their fragility
in his reversible purples
and unwholesome goldish chains?
At least embarrassment is not an imitation.
It’s intimacy for beginners,
the orgasm no one cares to fake.
I almost admire it. I almost wrote despise.
Copyright ©:
Alice Fulton
A few random poems:
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 78. Again at Christmas did we weave poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Fragment of a Greek Tragedy poem – A. E. Housman
- Book Review: A Dictionary Of Indian English Litterateurs: 1794-2010
- Attitude To A Miss by Vladimir Mayakovsky
- Николай Заболоцкий – Последняя любовь
- Зинаида Александрова – Дозор
- Юрий Галансков стихи: читать все стихотворения, поэмы поэта Юрий Галансков – Поэзия на Poetry Monster
- Invocation poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- Владимир Маяковский – День в маевочку мою… (Главполитпросвет №151)
- Poems.html 0
- In Praise of Laziness by William Wycherley
- Down on the Shore by William Allingham
- Past One O’Clock … by Vladimir Mayakovsky
- Спиридон Дрожжин – Рожь
- I See so Deeply Within Myself by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
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
- Dumb poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- Dionysus poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- Colophon poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- Boo to Buddha poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- Ave Adonai poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- Au Bal poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- Athor and Asar poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- At Sea poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- At Bordj-an-Nus poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- Arhan poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- An Oath poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- Adela poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- Tiger
- The School of Night
- The Return of Persephone
- The Pleasure of Princes
- The Gateway
- The Commination
- Standardization
- Phallus
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
