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:
- Raw Silk by Vinita Agrawal
- Владимир Маяковский – Забудем солдатчину!.. (РОСТА №425)
- The Craftsmen Of The Little Box by Vasko Popa
- IV: Some Verses: To The Author by William Alexander
- Flirting by Satish Verma
- City of Orgies. by Walt Whitman
- Poppies In October by Sylvia Plath
- The Virgin Maid of Orleans, Translation of Paul Verlaine’s sonnet: La Pucelle by T. Wignesan.
- Sonnet CXV by William Shakespeare
- Владимир Вишневский – Пассажирский поезд
- What Are Solar Roofing Shingles?
- Cuchulan’s Fight With The Sea by William Butler Yeats
- The islands of happiness
- Владимир Маяковский – Смотри, рабочий! Вот о чем сегодня речь (Главполитпросвет №166)
- Princess: A Medley: The splendour falls on castle walls poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
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
- houses.html
- flight_of_stairs.html
- epitaph_on_a_disturber_of_his_times.html
- epitaph_for_our_children.html
- cats.html
- Attack On The Ad-Man
- When I Was Young the Silk poem – A. R. Ammons poems | Poetry Monster
- Weathering poem – A. R. Ammons poems | Poetry Monster
- Their Sex Life poem – A. R. Ammons poems | Poetry Monster
- The City Limits poem – A. R. Ammons poems | Poetry Monster
- Still poem – A. R. Ammons poems | Poetry Monster
- So I Said I Am Ezra poem – A. R. Ammons poems | Poetry Monster
- Small Song poem – A. R. Ammons poems | Poetry Monster
- Shit List; Or, Omnium-gatherum Of Diversity Into Unity poem – A. R. Ammons poems | Poetry Monster
- Rogue Elephant poem – A. R. Ammons poems | Poetry Monster
- Rivulose poem – A. R. Ammons poems | Poetry Monster
- Release poem – A. R. Ammons poems | Poetry Monster
- Recovery poem – A. R. Ammons poems | Poetry Monster
- Rapids poem – A. R. Ammons poems | Poetry Monster
- Poetics poem – A. R. Ammons poems | Poetry Monster
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