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:
- Кондратий Рылеев – Н. М. Тевяшовой на предложение ее, дабы я написал стихи на Надежду
- Owen Aherne And His Dancers by William Butler Yeats
- Sonnet VII. To Solitude poem – John Keats poems
- As I Watch’d the Ploughman Ploughing. by Walt Whitman
- Be Lost In The Call by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- The Burial by Rudyard Kipling
- Иван Варавва – На окраине села
- Как небо сходится с водой
- Life of Ms Anonymous by Raj Arumugam
- The missing pen by Ross D Tyler
- Николай Языков – А. В. Тихвинскому (Как знать, куда моя дорога)
- My first seen by Osman cisse Hanif
- Владимир Высоцкий – В Средней Азии безобразие
- Alexander
- Владимир Маяковский – Подлиза
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
- Bathed in War’s Perfume. by Walt Whitman
- Base of all Metaphysics, The. by Walt Whitman
- at Weeping Face. by Walt Whitman
- Assurances. by Walt Whitman
- Ashes of Soldiers. by Walt Whitman
- As Toilsome I Wander’d. by Walt Whitman
- As the Time Draws Nigh. by Walt Whitman
- As if a Phantom Caress’d Me. by Walt Whitman
- As I Watch’d the Ploughman Ploughing. by Walt Whitman
- As I Walk These Broad, Majestic Days. by Walt Whitman
- As I Sat Alone by Blue Ontario’s Shores. by Walt Whitman
- As I Ponder’d in Silence. by Walt Whitman
- As I lay with Head in your Lap, Camerado. by Walt Whitman
- As Consequent, Etc. by Walt Whitman
- As At Thy Portals Also Death. by Walt Whitman
- As Adam, Early in the Morning. by Walt Whitman
- As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free. by Walt Whitman
- Artilleryman’s Vision, The. by Walt Whitman
- Apostroph. by Walt Whitman
- Ages and Ages, Returning at Intervals. by Walt Whitman
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
