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:
- Владимир Высоцкий – Однако, втягивать живот
- Владимир Корнилов – Чтение
- Владимир Маяковский – Смотри, крестьянин (РОСТА №463)
- Searing Heat by Satish Verma
- Mi ha el by Vinko Kalinić
- How a Little Girl Danced by Vachel Lindsay
- Walls at Drogheda by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
- Exposure by Seamus Heaney
- When that I was and a little tiny boy by William Shakespeare
- Thoughts by Ronald G. Auguste
- Aliter poem – Andrew Marvell poems
- The Galley-Slave by Rudyard Kipling
- Алексей Плещеев – Есть дни, ни злоба, ни любовь
- The Wicked Postman by Rabindranath Tagore
- Жан де Лафонтен – Городская и полевая Крысы
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
- Низами Гянджеви – Жить в заботе и невзгодах, расточая зло
- Низами Гянджеви – Я долго шел по лугу лет
- Низами Гянджеви – Я бросил молодость в пожар моей любви
- Низами Гянджеви – Хмельное счастье мое очнется
- Низами Гянджеви – Встань, виночерпий, не ленись
- Низами Гянджеви – Влюбленных порицают все
- Низами Гянджеви – В привычке сердца воровать ты
- Низами Гянджеви – В ночи я знаю
- Низами Гянджеви – Увы, на этой лужайке, где согнут страстью я,
- Низами Гянджеви – Ты видишь: я твой давний друг
- Низами Гянджеви – Ты рукой мне сжала сердце
- Низами Гянджеви – Тропы мне ни в духан, ни к богу нету
- Низами Гянджеви – Там, где лик ты светлый явишь
- Низами Гянджеви – Спустилась ночь
- Низами Гянджеви – Спать не стоит
- Низами Гянджеви – Слышишь, звякнул бубенцами
- Низами Гянджеви – Семь красавиц
- Низами Гянджеви – Розу пологом колючим
- Низами Гянджеви – Расступился черный мускус
- Низами Гянджеви – Ради встречи с тобой я до края земли дошел
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
