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:
- A Painting Morning
- Feelings of A French Royalist, On The Disinterment Of The Remains Of The Duke D’Enghien by William Wordsworth
- Birthday Ode for 31st December, 1787 by Robert Burns
- Sonnet 56: Sweet love, renew thy force, be it not said by William Shakespeare
- Parabola
- Beauty and Beauty by Rupert Brooke
- At Delphi poem – Alfred Austin
- Song—She’s Fair and Fause by Robert Burns
- The Fall by William Barnes
- Above the Battle’s Front by Vachel Lindsay
- Barbie Doll by Marge Piercy
- Delicate Cluster. by Walt Whitman
- The Lady’s First Song by William Butler Yeats
- Orlando Furioso Canto 24 by Ludovico Ariosto
- Home After Three Months Away by Robert Lowell
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
- Аля Кудряшева – Про ангелов
- Аля Кудряшева – Поперек
- Аля Кудряшева – Помнишь, как это
- Аля Кудряшева – Пой мне еще, что я могу изменить
- Аля Кудряшева – По дому бегает Марфа
- Аля Кудряшева – Осень в городе
- Аля Кудряшева – Октябрь был дождем, непонятным месяцем
- Аля Кудряшева – Ну что я могу ответить
- Аля Кудряшева – Ночное
- Аля Кудряшева – Невозможно держать в памяти все человечество
- Аля Кудряшева – Не бойся, милый
- Аля Кудряшева – Молитва
- Аля Кудряшева – Мне снился
- Аля Кудряшева – Меня мотает тянет ведет налево
- Аля Кудряшева – М. и П.
- Аля Кудряшева – Когда наступает вечер
- Аля Кудряшева – Какое там говорить. Я дышу с трудом
- Аля Кудряшева – И кстати, еще бывает уездный гор
- Аля Кудряшева – И если Богу нужны гимнасты
- Аля Кудряшева – Это просто слишком длинная осень
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
