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 Гумилев – Живала Ниагара
- Вера Павлова – Я дождевой червь
- Ce N’est Jamais Le Même Jardin by Martine Morillon-Carreau
- Exposed On The Cliffs Of The Heart by Rainer Maria Rilke
- Николай Карамзин – К Алине на смерть ее супруга
- By The Fates poem – Alfred Austin
- Lines Written As A School Exercise At Hawkshead, Anno Aetatis 14 by William Wordsworth
- Наум Коржавин – Подмосковная платформа в апреле
- Олег Бундур – Я сильнее
- When Helen Lived by William Butler Yeats
- Eternal Drift by Satish Verma
- The Lover’s Song by William Butler Yeats
- Lady Freedom Among Us by Rita Dove
- Skyscrapers by Rifat Ilgaz
- Аля Кудряшева – Я тут недавно встретила свое прошлое
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
- Оливер Голдсмит – Пыл упований людям дан
- Оливер Голдсмит – Послание в прозе и стихах
- Оливер Голдсмит – Подношение
- Оливер Голдсмит – Песенка
- Оливер Голдсмит – Опровержение логики
- Оливер Голдсмит – Оленья туша
- Оливер Голдсмит – Каждому по заслугам
- Оливер Голдсмит – Эпитафия Неду Пардону
- Ольга Высотская – Звёздочки
- Ольга Высотская – Здравствуй, праздник
- Ольга Высотская – Я зубы стисну, губы закушу
- Ольга Высотская – Волны
- Ольга Высотская – Веселый поезд
- Ольга Высотская – Снежный кролик
- Ольга Высотская – Первые заморозки
- Ольга Высотская – Обидчивая кукушка
- Ольга Высотская – Гости
- Ольга Высотская – Ежик
- Ольга Высотская стихи: лучшие стихотворения для детей Высотской – Poetry Monster
- Ольга Высотская – Детский сад
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
