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:
- Nature And the Book poem – Alfred Austin
- A Winter Twilight poem – Angelina Weld Grimke poems | Poems and Poetry
- On the Religious Memory of Mrs. Catherine Thomson, my Christian Friend, Deceased Dec. 16, 1646 poem – John Milton poems
- Humankind – How Limitless In Genius by Michael Levy
- Владимир Маяковский – Севастопольский корреспондент “Матен” сообщает… (РОСТА №507)
- Владимир Британишский – Служба
- The Morning Breeze by Mousumi Guha Roy
- Владимир Маяковский – Вам
- Lichtenberg by Rudyard Kipling
- Карина, ты моя любимая
- Olney Hymn 63: Not Of Works by William Cowper
- Crow’s Nerve Fails by Ted Hughes
- E-waste by Nisha Gopalakrishnan
- Whenever I Go There by W. S. Merwin
- Before Dawn poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
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
- This Will Not Win Him by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- This we Have Now by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- This is Love by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- This Aloneness by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- There is a Way by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- There is a life-force within your soul by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- There is a Community of Spirit by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- There is a Candle in your Heart by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- There is a Candle in your Heart by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- There Are A Hundred Kinds Of Prayer (Quatrain in Farsi with English Translation) by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- The Freshness by Rumi
- The Breeze at Dawn by Jelaluddin Rumi
- The time has come for us to become madmen in your chain by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- The Taste of Morning by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- The springtime of Lovers has come by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- The Self We Share by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- The Seed Market by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- The ravings which my enemy uttered I heard within my heart by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- The beauty of the heart by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- A Stone I died by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
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