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:
- Give Me Back My Rags #1 by Vasko Popa
- When that I was and a little tiny boy by William Shakespeare
- Sunshine by Vin lan
- The Giver by Sara Teasdale
- Le Monocle de Mon Oncle by Wallace Stevens
- AWAY FROM HOME by Satish Verma
- The Night
- Power of Peace by Rixa White
- Владимир Британишский – 1942 год
- Paris In Spring by Sara Teasdale
- Владимир Набоков – Санкт-Петербург
- Михаил Лермонтов – Баллада (В избушке позднею порою)
- Robert Burns: The Day Returns:
- Юлия Друнина – Сверстницам
- The Gardener XXVIII: Your Questioning Eyes by Rabindranath Tagore
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
- To Heal by Nithin Purple
- Time To Transplant by Nijole Miliauskaite
- They Tell Of The Warsaw Uprising by Nijole Miliauskaite
- The Witching Hour by Norma Martiri
- The Walk by Noel Angelo Hurley
- The Song of the Cheerful (but slightly sarcastic) Jesus by Oliver St. John Gogarty
- The place that is dark without space and the moonlight off the pond (The Gray) by Olivia Lewis
- The Last Whisper by Nizar Sartawi
- The Fire by Nin Andrews
- The Blacksmith by Olga Dytyniak
- The Battle of an National Icon by Norma Martiri
- The Visit by Nijole Miliauskaite
- That Summer by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Temporary City by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Synesthesia by Orla McGreevy
- Summer Enclosed In A Semi-Dark Cup by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Sound and Spirit by Oladele Hussein
- Song of Medical Dick and Medical Davy by Oliver St. John Gogarty
- Sleeping for Kafka by Nin Andrews
- Sitting Beside The Very Street by Nijole Miliauskaite
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