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:
- Point Of View by Shel Silverstein
- On The Victory Obtained By Blake Over the Spaniards, In The Bay Of Scanctacruze, In The Island Of teneriff.1657 poem – Andrew Marvell poems
- Whispering In Wattle Boughs
- The Haughty Snail-King by Vachel Lindsay
- Rimini by Rudyard Kipling
- The Brothers by William Wordsworth
- English Poetry. Thomas Moore. From “Irish Melodies”. 22. Let Erin Remember the Days of Old. Томас Мур.
- Who Is This? by Rabindranath Tagore
- Insomniac by Maya Angelou
- I took my lyre and said by Sappho
- Зинаида Александрова – Подснежник
- Indian Weavers by Sarojini Naidu
- To the Author of a Poem Entitled Succession poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Владимир Маяковский – Севастопольский корреспондент “Матен” сообщает… (РОСТА №507)
- Move Eastward, Happy Earth 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
- An Elegy On The Death Of A Mad Dog by Oliver Goldsmith
- Absolute Divine by Nithin Purple
- A Sculptor’s Vow by Nikhil Srinivas
- A woman’s desire by Oriada Dajko
- The Deserted Village by Oliver Goldsmith
- Poetic Abbreviations, Poetry Abbreviations
- I Remember, I Remember by Philip Larkin
- How Distant by Philip Larkin
- Home Is So Sad by Philip Larkin
- Homage To A Government by Philip Larkin
- High Windows by Philip Larkin
- He Hears That His Beloved Has Become Engaged by Philip Larkin
- Grief by Philip Larkin
- Going by Philip Larkin
- Friday Night At The Royal Station Hotel by Philip Larkin
- For Sidney Bechet by Philip Larkin
- First Sight by Philip Larkin
- Far Out by Philip Larkin
- Faith Healing by Philip Larkin
- Essential Beauty by Philip Larkin
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
