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:
- Year O’ year by Nikunj Sharma
- word of God by Raj Arumugam
- Олег Бундур – Я вырасту, мама
- John Milton – John Milton Poems
- Binsey Poplars poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Олег Григорьев – На боку кобура болталась
- from In Time of War by W H Auden
- Ritual by Tala Bar
- Алексей Николаевич Толстой – Приворот
- he_who_creates_re_creates_himself.html
- Михаил Кузмин – Зеленая птичка
- The Emotion Line by Rita Odessa Villaruel
- Andrew Jones by William Wordsworth
- Алексей Толстой – В альбом (Стрелок, на той поляне)
- Grace before and after Meat by Robert Burns
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 Land of the Exile by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Judge by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Journey by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Hero by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gift by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener XXXVIII: My Love, Once upon a Time by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener XXXIV: Do Not Go, My Love by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener XXVIII: Your Questioning Eyes by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener XXIV: Do Not Keep to Yourself by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener XXII: When She Passed by Me by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener XXI: Why Did He Choose by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener XX: Day After Day He Comes by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener XVI: Hands Cling to Eyes by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener XLVIII: Free Me by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener XLVI: You Left Me by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener XLV: To the Guests by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener XLIV: Reverend Sir, Forgive by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener XLIII: No, My Friends by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener XLII: O Mad, Superbly Drunk by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Gardener XL: An Unbelieving Smile by Rabindranath Tagore
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
