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:
- Cyprian, in my dream by Sappho
- Happy Victory Day – May 9, 2022
- After Long Silence by William Butler Yeats
- Олег Чупров – Не хочется мне славы громкой
- Robert Burns: Sweet Afton :
- Confused and Distraught by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Ka ‘Ba poem – Amiri Baraka poems | Poems and Poetry
- Sonnet To Mrs. Reynolds’s Cat poem – John Keats poems
- Николай Языков – Романс (Красой небесною прекрасна)
- On the Idle Hill of Summer by A. E. Housman
- Complete Destruction by William Carlos Williams
- Федор Сологуб – Вы не умеете целовать мою землю
- Владимир Маяковский – Раек (РОСТА №8)
- Bulgarian Lullaby by Vasil Slavov
- An Epitaph on the Admirable Dramatic Poet W. Shakespeare poem – John Milton 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
- The Old Revolutionary’s Room by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Ode of Welcome by Oliver St. John Gogarty
- O mother, O Merry by Nikunj Sharma
- My Invisible Valentine by Nin Andrews
- My first seen by Osman cisse Hanif
- My Government Frustrates Me by Olaniyi Beloved Abimbola
- Mother’s Love by Nin Andrews
- Living with Cancer by Nin Andrews
- Living in my Bliss by Nina Gabriel
- Life and Love by Nithin Purple
- Let’s pray the divine by Nikunj Sharma
- Knoxville Tennessee by Nikki Giovanni
- Journey Of Life by Nikhil Srinivas
- Jacaranda by Norma Martiri
- Inter-religion Wedding by Nisha Gopalakrishnan
- If I Were a Tree by Norma Martiri
- I was born with a cry by Nur Al-Alam
- How…? by Nizar Sartawi
- From: The Home We Will Never Live In That Place by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Heat Wave by Norma Martiri
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
