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:
- Стефан Малларме – Гробница Эдгара По
- Book Seventh [Residence in London] by William Wordsworth
- On a Soldier Fallen in the Philippines by William Vaughn Moody
- The First Part: Sonnet 1 – In my first years, and prime yet not at height by William Drummond
- From Marinero en tierra by Rafael Alberti
- Sonnet 14: Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck by William Shakespeare
- Lucky by Thomas Lux
- Elixer Vitæ poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Caucas poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Carpe Diem by William Shakespeare
- Catharina : The Second Part. On Her Marriage To George Courtenay, Esq. by William Cowper
- Hare-hunting by William Somervile
- Heartbreak at 2 A.M. poem – Yuvraj Johri poems | Poetry Monster
- Robert Burns: The Braes O’ Killiecrankie:
- Raise the head, child by Vinko Kalinić
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
- A Sigh In The Night
- A Sermon
- A Prayer
- A Dream Of Venice
- A Supplication
- Written Juice Lemon
- Written In Juice Of Lemon
- Wit
- Welcome
- Vote Excerpt
- Usurpation
- Tree Knowledge
- To The Royal Society
- To The Lord Falkland
- To Sir William Davenant
- Thisbes Song
- The Wish
- The Welcome
- The Vote Excerpt
- The Usurpation
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
