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:
- Владимир Маяковский – Рабочий, читай постановление СТО от 15 июня 1921 года (Главполитпросвет №222)
- Альфред Теннисон – Нищая и король
- Epitaph On Johnson by William Cowper
- Владимир Маяковский – Солдаты самодержавной армии мясниками бывали… (РОСТА №146)
- Atavism by William Stafford
- English Poetry. Madison Julius Cawein. Hymn to Spiritual Desire. Мэдисон Джулиус Кавейн.
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 2. Old Yew, which graspest at the sto poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Алишер Навои – Словно зеркало, сияет лик твой
- Let me draw your face by St Antoine de la Vuadi
- Love’s Wisdom poem – Alfred Austin
- To A Little Girl That Has Told A Lie
- Ольга Берггольц – Борису Корнилову
- The beauty of the heart by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Sonnet LXVII by William Shakespeare
- Eden in Winter by Vachel Lindsay
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
- V: Some Verses: To The Author Parthenius by William Alexander
- To Prince Charles by William Alexander
- To his Majestie by William Alexander
- The Sonnet, The Lady, And The Prince by William Alexander
- The Roses And The Mothers Cannot Choose by William Alexander
- Sonet 58 by William Alexander
- Sonet 57 by William Alexander
- Sonet 56 by William Alexander
- Sonet 55 by William Alexander
- Sonet 54 by William Alexander
- Sonet 53 by William Alexander
- Sonet 52 by William Alexander
- Sonet 51 by William Alexander
- Sonet 50 by William Alexander
- Sonet 5 by William Alexander
- Sonet 49 by William Alexander
- Sonet 48 by William Alexander
- Sonet 47 by William Alexander
- Sonet 44 by William Alexander
- Sonet 43 by William Alexander
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
