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:
- Юлий Даниэль – Друзьям
- Юнна Мориц – Вечерний свет
- The Old Huntsman by Siegfried Sassoon
- Stir in Stillness by Shruti Talnikar
- Kashmiri Song
- Wolves by Mary Bone
- Beggars by William Wordsworth
- Bustopher Jones: The Cat About Town by T. S. Eliot
- Long Distance II by Tony Harrison
- Far Within Us #5 by Vasko Popa
- Владимир Маяковский – Нам бы только вот это воскресити… (РОСТА)
- The Hosts
- Canto XLIX poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Robert Burns: The Gowden Locks Of Anna:
- Михаил Кузмин – Три раза я его видел лицом к лицу
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 Man, They Made a God by Walid Saba
- A Kind of Life by Stanley Wilkin
- A Gemini’s Hurt by Stephen Allen
- A Dogs Love Is a Never Ending Game by Stacey Chillemi
- A Carta/The Letter by Soaroir de Campos
- I stood musing in a black world by Stephen Crane
- I saw a man pursuing the horizon by Stephen Crane
- I met a seer by Stephen Crane
- I looked here by Stephen Crane
- I explain the silvered passing of a ship at night, by Stephen Crane
- God lay dead in heaven by Stephen Crane
- God fashioned the ship of the world carefully. by Stephen Crane
- Friend, your white beard sweeps the ground by Stephen Crane
- Forth went the candid man by Stephen Crane
- Each small gleam was a voice, by Stephen Crane
- A man went before a strange God by Stephen Crane
- A man toiled on a burning road by Stephen Crane
- A man saw a ball of gold in the sky by Stephen Crane
- A man said to the universe: by Stephen Crane
- A man feared that he might find an assassin by Stephen Crane
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
