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:
- Honor Among Scamps by Vachel Lindsay
- Mafeking poem – Alfred Austin
- Birthday Love Song by Miraj Patel
- Lover’s Gifts LII: Tired of Waiting by Rabindranath Tagore
- WALKING TOELESS by Satish Verma
- Eyes Look Into The Well by W H Auden
- Special Problems in Vocabulary by Tony Hoagland
- Night Shift by Sylvia Plath
- Paris
- St. Winefred’s Well poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Владимир Маяковский – О том, как некие сектантцы зовут рабочего на танцы
- Наум Коржавин – Еж и Заяц
- Song For A Summer’s Day by Sylvia Plath
- Иннокентий Анненский – Еврипид. Ион (перевод)
- The peace of wild things by Wendell Berry
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
- A Little Song poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Little Song poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Lady poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Lady poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Japanese Wood-Carving poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Japanese Wood-Carving poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Gift poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Gift poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Fixed Idea poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Fixed Idea poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Fairy Tale poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Fairy Tale poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Coloured Print by Shokei poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Coloured Print by Shokei poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Blockhead poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Blockhead poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Ballad of Footmen poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Ballad of Footmen poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- 1777 poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- 1777 poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
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
