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:
- Barnfloor and Winepress poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Human Tragedy ACT I poem – Alfred Austin
- Full Moon by Walid Saba
- Song by Thomas Carew
- Ольга Берггольц – Письмо из Ленинграда
- Amy Margaret’s Five Year Old by William Allingham
- In Honour Of St. Alphonsus Rodriguez poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- One Ran Before by Yvor Winters
- Огюст Барбье – Жертвы
- To Morrow
- The Gardener XIV: I Was Walking by the Road by Rabindranath Tagore
- On The Dunes by Sara Teasdale
- Илона Грошева – Мечтается Алине
- Юрий Верховский – Ах, душечка моя, как нынче мне светло
- Epigram at RoslinInn 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
- A Florida Ghost. by Sidney Lanier
- A Dedication. To Charlotte Cushman. by Sidney Lanier
- A Birthday Song. To S. G. by Sidney Lanier
- A Ballad Of The Trees And The Master by Sidney Lanier
- The Triumph by Siegfried Sassoon
- The Road To Ruin by Siegfried Sassoon
- The Portrait by Siegfried Sassoon
- Sporting Acquaintances by Siegfried Sassoon
- The Triumph by Siegfried Sassoon
- The Road To Ruin by Siegfried Sassoon
- Sassoon’s Public Statement Of Defiance by Siegfried Sassoon
- The Portrait by Siegfried Sassoon
- Sporting Acquaintances by Siegfried Sassoon
- The Road To Ruin by Siegfried Sassoon
- Solar Eclipse by Siegfried Sassoon
- Return Of The Heroes by Siegfried Sassoon
- Return Of The Heroes by Siegfried Sassoon
- Prelude: The Troops by Siegfried Sassoon
- The Road To Ruin by Siegfried Sassoon
- On Passing The New Menin Gate by Siegfried Sassoon
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
