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:
- I Know A Man by Robert Creeley
- Straw in the Street poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Николай Заболоцкий – Сентябрь
- Николай Глазков – Чингисхан, Батый, Аттила
- Claribel: A Melody poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Notes for Canto CXX poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Ode on Solitude poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Poor Devil! by Stephen Vincent Benet
- The Gardener LXXIX: I Often Wonder by Rabindranath Tagore
- Power Of Thought
- Instead of farewell by Vinko Kalinić
- My Mother’s Body by Marge Piercy
- Exposed On The Cliffs Of The Heart by Rainer Maria Rilke
- Валерий Брюсов – Грядущие гунны
- The Great War by Vernon Scannell
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
- Sonnet 20: A woman’s face with Nature’s own hand painted by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 1: From fairest creatures we desire increase by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 19: Devouring Time blunt thou the lion’s paws by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 17: Who will believe my verse in time to come by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 16: But wherefore do not you a mightier way by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 15: When I consider every thing that grows by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 154: The little Love-god lying once asleep by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 153: Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 152: In loving thee thou know’st I am forsworn by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 151: Love is too young to know what conscience is by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 150: O from what power hast thou this powerful might by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 14: Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 54: O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 53: What is your substance, whereof are you made by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 52: So am I as the rich whose blessèd key by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 51: Thus can my love excuse the slow offence by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 50: How heavy do I journey on the way by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 4: Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 49: Against that time, if ever that time come by William Shakespeare
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
