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:
- Robert Burns: Extempore Reply To An Invitation:
- Анатолий Жигулин – Москва
- Dark spring by Yvor Winters
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песня Марии
- Николай Тихонов – Когда уйду
- St. Francis of Assisi by Vachel Lindsay
- The Homestead by William Barnes
- Grandeur Of Ghosts by Siegfried Sassoon
- The Vision poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Welcome To My World © by Shannen Wrass
- The Allies poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Epitaph for Maria Wentworth by Thomas Carew
- The Primrose by Thomas Carew
- Казимир Лисовский – Река Енисей
- Ruth by Thomas Hood
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
- everything is a lie by tulip
- Dreaming of Li Po by Tu Fu
- Day’s End by Tu Fu
- Can You See The Pride In The Panther? by Tupac Shakur
- By the Lake by Tu Fu
- Ballad of the Old Cypress by Tu Fu
- Ballad of the Army Carts by Tu Fu
- Ballad Of The Press-Gang At Shihao Village by Du Fu
- Aphrodite – The Birth by Uma Maheswari Anandane
- Alone, Looking for Blossoms Along the River by Tu Fu
- Yet Gentle Will the Griffin Be by Vachel Lindsay
- Yankee Doodle by Vachel Lindsay
- Written for a Musician by Vachel Lindsay
- With a Bouquet of Twelve Roses by Vachel Lindsay
- Why I Voted the Socialist Ticket by Vachel Lindsay
- Who Knows? by Vachel Lindsay
- Where Is the Real Non-Resistant by Vachel Lindsay
- Where Is David, the Next King of Israel? by Vachel Lindsay
- When Gassy Thompson Struck It Rich by Vachel Lindsay
- When Bryan Speaks by Vachel Lindsay
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
