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:
- Иван Дмитриев – Слепец, Собака его и Школьник
- Sonnet CXLIX by William Shakespeare
- To Sir George Howland Beaumont, Bart From the South-West Coast Or Cumberland 1811 by William Wordsworth
- The Silent Battle by Sara Teasdale
- Федор Сологуб – Лихо
- After Hearing a Waltz poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Written In Very Early Youth by William Wordsworth
- Looking For a Sunset Bird in Winter by Robert Frost
- Shelley’s Death poem – Alfred Austin
- Biography In The First Person by Stephen Dunn
- The tragic tale of Bobby Magee by Ross D Tyler
- Владимир Корнилов – Командировка на Север
- The Fool Errant poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Wreck Of The Deutschland poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Владимир Набоков – Я на море гляжу из мраморного храма
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
- A Fable by William Cowper
- A Comparison by William Cowper
- A Comparison. Addressed To A Young Lady by William Cowper
- A Child Of God Longing To See Him Beloved by William Cowper
- William Ellery Leonard – William Ellery Leonard
- Wayside Flowers by William Allingham
- These Little Songs by William Allingham
- The Touchstone by William Allingham
- The Little Dell by William Allingham
- The Fairies by William Allingham
- The Eviction by William Allingham
- The Boy by William Allingham
- Robin Redbreast by William Allingham
- Places and Men by William Allingham
- On a Forenoon of Spring by William Allingham
- Meadowsweet by William Allingham
- Lepracaun or Fairy Shoemaker, The by William Allingham
- Late Autumn by William Allingham
- William Allingham – William Allingham
- In Snow by William Allingham
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