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:
- To a Childless Woman by Siegfried Sassoon
- The End of the Argument by Martina Reisz Newberry
- What these girl means to me by Maphoto selokela
- The Princess In The Tower by Sara Teasdale
- Sonnet 103: Alack, what poverty my Muse brings forth by William Shakespeare
- The Song of the Old Guard by Rudyard Kipling
- Spirituality of Gerard Manley Hopkins, Gerard Manley Hopkins: a shepherd poet
- Job by Nelly Sachs
- Lightning In The Dark Night Skies
- Crush by Muhereza Louis
- Bury Me In My Shades by Shel Silverstein
- Федор Сологуб – Собака седого короля
- I know our friendship wil never end by Miraj Patel
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Любить
- Like The Water 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
- Hail, Zaragoza! If With Unwet eye by William Wordsworth
- Hail, Twilight, Sovereign Of One Peaceful Hour by William Wordsworth
- Guilt And Sorrow, Or, Incidents Upon Salisbury Plain by William Wordsworth
- Great Men Have Been Among Us by William Wordsworth
- Goody Blake And Harry Gill by William Wordsworth
- Gipsies by William Wordsworth
- George and Sarah Green by William Wordsworth
- From The Italian Of Michael Angelo by William Wordsworth
- From The Dark Chambers Of Dejection Freed by William Wordsworth
- From The Cuckoo And The Nightingale by William Wordsworth
- Foresight by William Wordsworth
- Fidelity by William Wordsworth
- Feelings Of The Tyrolese by William Wordsworth
- Feelings Of A Noble Biscayan At One Of Those Funerals by William Wordsworth
- Feelings of A French Royalist, On The Disinterment Of The Remains Of The Duke D’Enghien by William Wordsworth
- Extract From The Conclusion Of A Poem Composed In Anticipation Of Leaving School by William Wordsworth
- Extempore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg by William Wordsworth
- Expostulation and Reply by William Wordsworth
- Even As A Dragon’s Eye That Feels The Stress by William Wordsworth
- Epitaphs Translated From Chiabrera by William Wordsworth
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
