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:
- Memorials Of A Tour In Scotland, 1803 XII. Sonnet Composed At —- Castle by William Wordsworth
- Waste Land – A Thorough History of Humanity
- The Blue Guitar by P. K. Page
- Низами Гянджеви – Когда ее ароматом неслышно ветер повеет
- The Hollow Woak by William Barnes
- Нина Воронель – Юбилей в доме литераторов
- With Ships the Sea was Sprinkled Far and Nigh by William Wordsworth
- Suicide In The Trenches by Siegfried Sassoon
- Bones by Walter de la Mare
- Николай Глазков – Пусть будет эта повесть
- Sonnet II: Not At First Sight by Sir Philip Sidney
- Recorders Ages Hence. by Walt Whitman
- On King Arthur’s Round Table at Winchester by Thomas Warton
- Sonnet 79: Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid by William Shakespeare
- English Poetry. Thomas Moore. From “Irish Melodies”. 85. Oh For the Swords of Former Time. Томас Мур.
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
- The Leaden Echo And The Golden Echo poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Lantern Out Of Doors poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Handsome Heart poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Half-way House poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Habit Of Perfection poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Furl of Fresh-Leaved Dogrose Down poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Child Is Father To The Man poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Candle Indoors poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Caged Skylark poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Bugler’s First Communion poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Blessed Virgin Compared To The Air We Breathe poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Alchemist in the City poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- That Nature Is A Heraclitean Fire And Of The Comfort Of The Resurrection poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Summa poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Strike, Churl poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- St. Winefred’s Well poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- St. Alphonsus Rodriguez poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Spring & Fall: To A Young Child poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Spring poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Spelt From Sibyl’s Leaves poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
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