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:
- An Enigma by William Cowper
- Behold this Swarthy Face. by Walt Whitman
- Byzantium by William Butler Yeats
- hoppity.html
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Одиночество
- No Return by William Matthews
- Зинаида Александрова – Новый снег
- Dedication by Rudyard Kipling
- A Dream by William Allingham
- Oh Wert Thou In The Cauld Blast by Robert Burns
- Юлия Друнина – А всё равно
- The Death of Knowledge by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
- The Lady’s Third Song by William Butler Yeats
- Владимир Маяковский – Весна (Город зимнее снял)
- Вера Звягинцева – На смерть Есенина
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
- Arms and the Man by Siegfried Sassoon
- Arcady Unheeding by Siegfried Sassoon
- Ancient History by Siegfried Sassoon
- Ancestors by Siegfried Sassoon
- An Old French Poet by Siegfried Sassoon
- Alone by Siegfried Sassoon
- Aftermath by Siegfried Sassoon
- Absolution by Siegfried Sassoon
- A Working Party by Siegfried Sassoon
- A Whispered Tale by Siegfried Sassoon
- A Wanderer by Siegfried Sassoon
- A Subaltern by Siegfried Sassoon
- A Poplar and the Moon by Siegfried Sassoon
- A Mystic As Soldier by Siegfried Sassoon
- A Letter Home by Siegfried Sassoon
- A Child’s Prayer by Siegfried Sassoon
- Night Launch by Sonya Ki Tomlinson
- Long For This World by Sophie Hannah
- LIGHT ECHOES by Sonya Ki Tomlinson
- Life Brings Me to this Journey. by Stephen Sweitzer
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
