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:
- The Mirror by Robert Creeley
- Manure by Mark R Slaughter
- They won’t Know by Rifat Ilgaz
- Ralph to Mary poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Meeting by Sara Teasdale
- To a Certain Cantatrice. by Walt Whitman
- Scenes Of The Mind
- Владимир Маяковский – Небесный чердак
- Ольга Берггольц – Мы предчувствовали полыханье
- Feroza
- Tell Me a Story by Robert Penn Warren
- Last Invocation, The. by Walt Whitman
- Faith by John Oxenham
- Ольга Ермолаева – Я так же, как ты, от стыда опускаю ресницы
- The Russian Fugitive by William Wordsworth
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
- Владимир Маяковский – Помогите цинготным детям (Главполитпросвет №274)
- Владимир Маяковский – Помогай фронту… (РОСТА №480)
- Владимир Маяковский – Помните
- Владимир Маяковский – Помни о дне красной казармы! (РОСТА № 732)
- Владимир Маяковский – Поляки-крестьяне, чтоб вольными быть…
- Владимир Маяковский – Польша
- Владимир Маяковский – Политические партии в России
- Владимир Маяковский – Поэт рабочий
- Владимир Маяковский – ПОДХОДИ, ТОВАРИЩ, СМОТРИ ЛУЧШЕ… (Главполитпросвет №69)
- Владимир Маяковский – Подписи к рисункам в журнале “ВОБ”
- Владимир Маяковский – Подлиза
- Владимир Маяковский – Почему нет помощи от Румынии (Главполитпросвет №327)
- Владимир Маяковский – Победой увенчав Октябрьский бой… (Главполитпросвет №364)
- Владимир Маяковский – По городам Союза
- Владимир Маяковский – Плюшкин
- Владимир Маяковский – Плакаты, 1928
- Владимир Маяковский – Плакат о жилищно-строительном займе
- Владимир Маяковский – Письмо Татьяне Яковлевой
- Владимир Маяковский – Письмо к любимой Молчанова, брошенной им
- Владимир Маяковский – Пилсудский
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
