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:
- Sonnet CXLV by William Shakespeare
- One Day You Will Miss Me.. by Rahul S
- The Rape of the Lock: Canto 1 poem – Alexander Pope
- Robert Burns: Thou Gloomy December :
- The Last Leap
- Sonnet To John Hamilton Reynolds poem – John Keats poems
- Джон Донн – Любовная наука
- Last Curtain by Rabindranath Tagore
- Владимир Маяковский – Да здравствуют недели помощи по всей республике (Главполитпросвет №353)
- The Kiss by Rabindranath Tagore
- Sonnet CXIX by William Shakespeare
- Николай Глазков – Поэзия! Ты не потерпишь фальши
- Алексей Жемчужников – Уже давно иду я, утомленный
- Robert Burns: On Andrew Turner:
- An Honest Poet’s Life Is Full Of Care by Malcolm Massiah
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
- Calais, August 1802 by William Wordsworth
- Calais, August 15, 1802 by William Wordsworth
- By The Side Of The Grave Some Years After by William Wordsworth
- By The Seaside by William Wordsworth
- “By Moscow Self-Devoted To A Blaze” by William Wordsworth
- “Brook! Whose Society The Poet Seeks” by William Wordsworth
- British Freedom by William Wordsworth
- “Brave Schill! By Death Delivered” by William Wordsworth
- Bothwell Castle by William Wordsworth
- Book Twelfth [Imagination And Taste, How Impaired And Restored ] by William Wordsworth
- Book Thirteenth [Imagination And Taste, How Impaired And Restored Concluded] by William Wordsworth
- Book Third [Residence at Cambridge] by William Wordsworth
- Book Tenth {Residence in France continued] by William Wordsworth
- Book Sixth [Cambridge and the Alps] by William Wordsworth
- Book Seventh [Residence in London] by William Wordsworth
- Book Second [School-Time Continued] by William Wordsworth
- Book Ninth [Residence in France] by William Wordsworth
- Book Fourth [Summer Vacation] by William Wordsworth
- Book Fourteenth [conclusion] by William Wordsworth
- Book First [Introduction-Childhood and School Time] by William Wordsworth
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