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:
- Николай Языков – Романс (Что делал с Евою Адам)
- Excerpt From The Gertrude Stein Collaborative Series
- Incense by Vachel Lindsay
- the_christening.html
- The Room by Mark Strand
- Clover by Sidney Lanier
- Astrophel and Stella VII: WhenNature Made her Chief Work by Sir Philip Sidney
- The Song Maker by Sara Teasdale
- Sonnet 121: Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed by William Shakespeare
- Владимир Маяковский – Тревога
- Владимир Маяковский – Два не совсем обычных случая
- Or from that Sea of Time. by Walt Whitman
- Telescopes In The Square by Graham Rowlands
- The Hymn poem – John Milton poems
- Scum Of The Earth by Shel Silverstein
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
- June Dreams, In January by Sidney Lanier
- Jones’s Porvate Argyment by Sidney Lanier
- Ireland. by Sidney Lanier
- In The Foam. by Sidney Lanier
- In Absence. by Sidney Lanier
- Hymns Of The Marshes. by Sidney Lanier
- From The Flats. by Sidney Lanier
- Corn by Sidney Lanier
- Control by Sidney Lanier
- Clover by Sidney Lanier
- Barnacles by Sidney Lanier
- Baby Charley. by Sidney Lanier
- At First. To Charlotte Cushman. by Sidney Lanier
- An Evening Song. by Sidney Lanier
- Acknowledgment. by Sidney Lanier
- A Sunrise Song. by Sidney Lanier
- A Song Of The Future. by Sidney Lanier
- A Song Of Eternity In Time by Sidney Lanier
- A Sea-Shore Grave. To M. J. L. by Sidney Lanier
- A Florida Sunday. by Sidney Lanier
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