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:
- Василий Курочкин – Как не вскрикнуть тут с поэтом
- A Front Row Seat To Hear Ole Johnny Sing by Shel Silverstein
- Forest by Walter William Safar
- On the Countess of Burlington Cutting Paper poem – Alexander Pope
- A New Song to an Old Tune by William Ernest Henley
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 45. The baby new to earth and sky poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Василий Жуковский – Государыне великой княгине на рождение
- Let Me Die a Youngman’s Death by Roger McGough
- Robert Burns: The Kirk Of Scotland’s Alarm:
- Ballade Of Amoureuse poem – Andrew Lang poems
- A Father Out, An’ Mother Hwome by William Barnes
- Taylor Swift
- Divided Passion
- Let me Count the Poets Left by Michael K. Shiu
- Diffugere Nives poem – A. E. Housman
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 A Young Writer by Yvor Winters
- Time And The Garden by Yvor Winters
- The Slow Pacific Swell by Yvor Winters
- The Moralists by Yvor Winters
- The Journey by Yvor Winters
- The Fable by Yvor Winters
- The Empty Hills by Yvor Winters
- Sir Gawaine And The Green Knight by Yvor Winters
- One Ran Before by Yvor Winters
- On A View Of Pasadena From The Hills by Yvor Winters
- Night Of Battle by Yvor Winters
- Much In Little by Yvor Winters
- Moonrise by Yvor Winters
- John Sutter by Yvor Winters
- God Of Roads by Yvor Winters
- At The San Francisco Airport by Yvor Winters
- An October Nocturne by Yvor Winters
- Alone by Yvor Winters
- A Song In Passing by Yvor Winters
- The Tavern by Willa Cather
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
