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:
- A Winter Night by Robert Burns
- Mother, I cannot mind my Wheel by Walter Savage Landor
- At The End Of The Day by Rabindranath Tagore
- A Farewell poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Sonnet 132: Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me by William Shakespeare
- Michaelangelo by Vachel Lindsay
- Isabella or The Pot of Basil poem – John Keats poems
- Владимир Маяковский – Вот для чего мужику самолет
- In David’s “Child’s Garden Of Verses” by Sara Teasdale
- Низами Гянджеви – Жить в заботе и невзгодах, расточая зло
- A Portrait Of 1783 poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Нина Воронель – Запахи детства еще не забыты
- Elegie IV: On The Death of Prince Henrie by William Alexander
- Николай Языков – А. М. Языкову (Теперь, когда пророчественный дар)
- For The Record
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 Zong Of Harvest Hwome by William Barnes
- A Wife A-Praïs’d by William Barnes
- A-Haulen O’ The Corn by William Barnes
- A Good Father by William Barnes
- A Bit O’ Fun by William Barnes
- Invictus by William Ernest Henley
- Barmaid by William Ernest Henley
- Ballade of Dead Actors by William Ernest Henley
- Youth And Beauty by William Carlos Williams
- Heel & Toe To The End by William Carlos Williams
- from Book I, Paterson by William Carlos Williams
- Flowers By The Sea by William Carlos Williams
- Dedication For A Plot Of Ground by William Carlos Williams
- Danse Russe by William Carlos Williams
- Complete Destruction by William Carlos Williams
- Complaint by William Carlos Williams
- Children’s Games by William Carlos Williams
- Blizzard by William Carlos Williams
- Berket And The Stars by William Carlos Williams
- Aux Imagistes by William Carlos Williams
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