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:
- Николай Заболоцкий – Ласточка
- I See so Deeply Within Myself by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 5. Sometimes I Hold it half a Sin poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- The Disquieting Muses by Sylvia Plath
- Orlando Furioso Canto 18 by Ludovico Ariosto
- An Ode to Beer
- Arhan poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- Владимир Маяковский – Два не совсем обычных случая
- Block City by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Cromwell’s Return poem – Andrew Marvell poems
- Altar amid the sea by Vinko Kalinic
- Mark Twain and Joan of Arc by Vachel Lindsay
- Как папа женился
- When To The Attractions Of The Busy World by William Wordsworth
- On Passing The New Menin Gate by Siegfried Sassoon
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 New Broom by Witt Wittmann
- A Form Of Women by Robert Creely
- A Sonnet Occasioned by the Bad Weather Which Hindered the Sports at New-Market in January, 1616 by William Drummond
- A Little Te Deum Of The Commonplace by John Oxenham
- Telephone Conversation by Wole Soyinka
- I think it rains by Wole Soyinka
- Dedication From Moremi by Wole Soyinka
- As Like The Woman As You Can by William Ernest Henley
- A Thanksgiving by William Ernest Henley
- At Queensferry by William Ernest Henley
- A New Song to an Old Tune by William Ernest Henley
- A Love By The Sea by William Ernest Henley
- A Late Lark Twitters From The Quiet Skies by William Ernest Henley
- A Dainty Thing’s The Villanelle by William Ernest Henley
- Blithe Dreams Arise To Greet Us by William Ernest Henley
- Beside The Idle Summer Sea by William Ernest Henley
- Ballade Of Youth And Age by William Ernest Henley
- Ballade Of Truisms by William Ernest Henley
- Ballade Of A Toyokuni Colour-Print by William Ernest Henley
- Ballade Of Midsummer Days And Nights by William Ernest Henley
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
