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:
- Towards The sky by Pushpendra Singh Baghel
- Adieu to a Soldier by Walt Whitman
- Михаил Кузмин – Живется нам не плохо
- My Lady’s Law by Rudyard Kipling
- Bees A-Zwarmen by William Barnes
- XIII: Some Verses: On A Report On The Death Of The Author by William Alexander
- Аля Кудряшева – Ну что я могу ответить
- The Morning Walk
- Владимир Маяковский – Собственную революцию удушив… (РОСТА №443)
- At The Cenotaph by Siegfried Sassoon
- Николай Глазков – 9-е мая
- Владимир Британишский – Царство – одно, но России-то – две
- Psalm 84 poem – John Milton poems
- Miracles by Paul Hostovsky
- Sunflowers by Martin Willitts Jr.
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
- Ольга Берггольц – Мой дом
- Ольга Берггольц – Мне не поведать о моей утрате
- Ольга Берггольц – Марш оловянных солдатиков
- Ольга Берггольц – Майя
- Ольга Берггольц – Лучший город
- Ольга Берггольц – Ленинградская осень
- Ольга Берггольц – Ласточки над обрывом
- Ольга Берггольц – Кирову
- Ольга Берггольц – Какая тёмная зима
- Ольга Берггольц – Как на озёрном хуторе
- Ольга Берггольц – К сердцу Родины руку тянет
- Ольга Берггольц – Из “Писем с дороги”
- Ольга Берггольц – И вновь одна, совсем одна в дорогу
- Ольга Берггольц – Февральский дневник
- Ольга Берггольц – Два стихотворения дочерям
- Ольга Берггольц – Дорога на фронт
- Ольга Берггольц – Детскосельский парк
- Ольга Берггольц – Церковь “Дивная” в Угличе
- Ольга Берггольц – Борису Корнилову
- Ольга Берггольц – Беатриче (строгая любовь)
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
