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:
- Happiness by Wilfred Owen
- Владимир Маяковский – Венера Милосская и Вячеслав Полонский
- The General Public by Stephen Vincent Benet
- Point Of View by Shel Silverstein
- The Furies by Weldon Kees
- Eyesight poem – A. R. Ammons poems | Poetry Monster
- The Titanic poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- Eating Poetry by Mark Strand
- A Rajput Love Song by Sarojini Naidu
- Николай Заболоцкий – Испытание воли
- Life poem – Yahya Kemal Beyatli poems | Poetry Monster
- xai_kou_from_book_seeds_of_faith.html
- Robert Burns: The Soldier’s Return:
- Second Epistle to J. Lapraik by Robert Burns
- Through Liberty To Light poem – Alfred Austin
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
- At The Abbey Theatre by William Butler Yeats
- At Galway Races by William Butler Yeats
- At Algeciras; A Meditaton Upon Death by William Butler Yeats
- Are You Content? by William Butler Yeats
- Another Song Of A Fool by William Butler Yeats
- An Irish Airman Forsees His Death by William Butler Yeats
- An Image From A Past Life by William Butler Yeats
- An Appointment by William Butler Yeats
- An Acre Of Grass by William Butler Yeats
- All Things Can Tempt Me by William Butler Yeats
- Against Unworthy Praise by William Butler Yeats
- After Long Silence by William Butler Yeats
- Adam’s Curse by William Butler Yeats
- A Woman Homer Sung by William Butler Yeats
- A Thought From Propertius by William Butler Yeats
- A Stick Of Incense by William Butler Yeats
- A Statesman’s Holiday by William Butler Yeats
- A Song From ‘The Player Queen’ by William Butler Yeats
- A Song by William Butler Yeats
- A Prayer On Going Into My House by William Butler Yeats
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