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:
- The Ghost by Sara Teasdale
- Mowgli’s Song by Rudyard Kipling
- Robert Burns: Tarbolton Lasses, The:
- Orlando Furioso Canto 12 by Ludovico Ariosto
- Robert Burns: Whistle O’er The Lave O’t:
- Наум Коржавин – Комиссары
- Георгий Иванов – Танцуй, монах, танцуй, поэт
- Владимир Высоцкий – Жил-был человек, который очень много видел
- Жан де Лафонтен – Утопленница
- Circus In Three Rings by Sylvia Plath
- Repeat That, Repeat poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Song II: Have No Thought for Tomorrow by William Morris
- Pure call of the wilderness by Vinko Kalinic
- A June-Tide Echo poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Ballades V – Of His Choice Of A Sepulchre poem – Andrew Lang poems
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
- In Token Of The Love You Gave by Timothy Thomas Fortune
- I shall not be a shame by Torm Gardson
- I Make My bed Of Roses by Timothy Thomas Fortune
- Henry Clay’s Mouth by Thomas Lux
- He Has Lived In Many Houses by Thomas Lux
- Gorgeous Surfaces by Thomas Lux
- Gentle Heart, Indulge Thy Dreaming by Timothy Thomas Fortune
- Death of the Legend by Timileyin Gabriel Olajuwon
- A Little Tooth by Thomas Lux
- A Library Of Skulls by Thomas Lux
- A Lady Aurum by Thriveni Mysore
- A Kiss by Thomas Lux
- “While with fond rapture and amaze” by Tobias Smollett
- Verses On A Young Lady (playing harpsichord, and singing) by Tobias Smollett
- Verses On A Young Lady (playing harpsichord, and singing) by Tobias Smollett
- To Mirth by Tobias Smollett
- To Independence by Tobias Smollett
- “To fix her!-’twere a task as vain” by Tobias Smollett
- The Tears of Scotland by Tobias Smollett
- The Tears of Scotland by Tobias Smollett
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
