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:
- Владимир Британишский – Читая Ремарка
- Towards Understanding, Through Poetry
- Epistles to Several Persons: Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Robert Burns: A Rose-Bud By My Early Walk:
- On The Loss Of The “Royal George” by William Cowper
- Николай Глазков – Подражание
- Wake Not for the World-Heard Thunder poem – A. E. Housman
- Владимир Агатов – Бессмертный Ленинград
- Эмиль Верхарн – Золото
- Владимир Британишский – Инициалы: Д.Я
- Darest Thou Now, O Soul. by Walt Whitman
- Зинаида Александрова – Колокольчики
- Ah Poverties, Wincings and Sulky Retreats. by Walt Whitman
- On A View Of Pasadena From The Hills by Yvor Winters
- In The Event Of My Demise by Tupac Shakur
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
- The Brave and the Love Flute by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
- Faith and Faiths by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
- Walls at Drogheda by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
- The Death of Knowledge by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
- The Brave and the Love Flute by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
- Faith and Faiths by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
- Walls at Drogheda by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
- The Death of Knowledge by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
- The Brave and the Love Flute by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
- Faith and Faiths by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
- Be Not a War Poet by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
- Why the Young Men Are So Ugly by Tony Hoagland
- V by Tony Harrison
- Turns by Tony Harrison
- The Change by Tony Hoagland
- Special Problems in Vocabulary by Tony Hoagland
- Requests for Toy Piano by Tony Hoagland
- Reasons to Survive November by Tony Hoagland
- Reading Moby-Dick at 30,000 Feet by Tony Hoagland
- Quiet by Tony Hoagland
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
