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:
- Imitation Of Spenser poem – John Keats poems
- Ольга Берггольц – Осень (Мне осень озёрного края)
- Robert Burns: The Lament: Occasioned by the unfortunate issue of a Friend’s Amour.
- Михаил Кузмин – Трое (Нас было трое)
- A Dainty Thing’s The Villanelle by William Ernest Henley
- A Superscription On Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia, Sent For A Token by William Strode
- Джон Китс – Два-три букета и две-три коробки
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 126. Love is and was my Lord and King poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Bare Tongue by Satish Verma
- I am only the house of your beloved by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Aftershock by William Marr
- I Make My bed Of Roses by Timothy Thomas Fortune
- In a Subway Station by Sara Teasdale
- Point Shirley by Sylvia Plath
- Низами Гянджеви – О кипарис с плавной поступью мри
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 Poet by Thomas Hardy
- A Meeting With Despair by Thomas Hardy
- A Man (In Memory of H. of M.) by Thomas Hardy
- A King’s Soliloquy [On the Night of His Funeral] by Thomas Hardy
- In A Wood by Thomas Hardy
- “I Sometimes Think” by Thomas Hardy
- A Death-Day Recalled by Thomas Hardy
- A Conversation At Dawn by Thomas Hardy
- A Confession To A Friend In Trouble by Thomas Hardy
- A Commonplace Day by Thomas Hardy
- A Circular by Thomas Hardy
- A Christmas Ghost Story by Thomas Hardy
- Amabel by Thomas Hardy
- Ah, Are You Digging On My Grave? by Thomas Hardy
- After The Visit by Thomas Hardy
- After Schiller by Thomas Hardy
- After A Journey by Thomas Hardy
- Additions: The Fire at Tranter Sweatley’s by Thomas Hardy
- “According to the Mighty Working” by Thomas Hardy
- A Wife In London by Thomas Hardy
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