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:
- The Poor Fisherman
- A Prayer For My Son by William Butler Yeats
- Diary of a Palestinian Wound by Mahmoud Darwish
- Ольга Ермолаева – Если о плачущих
- From Far Dakota’s Cañons. by Walt Whitman
- Жан де Лафонтен – Лисица и Аист
- Владимир Маяковский – Если белогвардейщину не добьем совсем… (РОСТА №148)
- February 23
- September 1, 1939 by W. H. Auden
- The Upstairs Room by Weldon Kees
- Far Out by Philip Larkin
- To S.M., A Young African Painter, On Seeing His Works by Phillis Wheatley
- The Angel Of The Church by William Gilmore Simms
- Вера Полозкова – И катись бутылкой по автостраде
- At Grass by Philip Larkin
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 Bell Buoy by Rudyard Kipling
- The Ballad of the Red Earl by Rudyard Kipling
- The Ballad of the King’s Mercy by Rudyard Kipling
- The Ballad of the King’s Jest by Rudyard Kipling
- The Ballad of Fisher’s Boarding-House by Rudyard Kipling
- The Ballad of East and West by Rudyard Kipling
- The Answer by Rudyard Kipling
- Tarrant Moss by Rudyard Kipling
- Sussex by Rudyard Kipling
- Study of an Elevation, In Indian Ink by Rudyard Kipling
- South Africa by Rudyard Kipling
- Song of the Wise Children by Rudyard Kipling
- Song of the Red War-Boat by Rudyard Kipling
- Song of Diego Valdez by Rudyard Kipling
- Soldier an’ Sailor Too by Rudyard Kipling
- Snarleyow by Rudyard Kipling
- Sir Richard’s Song by Rudyard Kipling
- Shillin’ a Day by Rudyard Kipling
- Seven Watchmen by Rudyard Kipling
- Seal Lullaby by Rudyard Kipling
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
