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:
- Conjugal by Russell Edson
- Think No More, Lad poem – A. E. Housman
- On a certain Lady at Court poem – Alexander Pope
- Robert Burns: On The Late Captain Grose’s Peregrinations Thro’ Scotland: Collecting The Antiquities Of That Kingdom
- Counting My Past
- Love Sonnet X poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- Ирина Токмакова – Каша
- The Happy Warrior by William Wordsworth
- A Work Of Artifice by Marge Piercy
- Memorials Of A Tour In Scotland 1814 I. Suggested By A Beautiful Ruin Upon One Of The Islands Of Lo by William Wordsworth
- The Lady’s First Song by William Butler Yeats
- Николай Языков – Баян к русскому воину
- Олег Бундур – Ближе к снегу
- Boots by Rudyard Kipling
- Touch-And-Go by Sylvia Plath
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
- Николай Языков – Романс (Что делал с Евою Адам)
- Николай Языков – Родина
- Николай Языков – Разбойники
- Николай Языков – Пушкину (О ты, чья дружба мне дороже)
- Николай Языков – Прошли младые наши годы
- Николай Языков – Прощальная песня (В последний раз приволье жизни братской)
- Николай Языков – Прими ты мой поклон заздравный
- Николай Языков – Поздравление М. Н. Дириной
- Николай Языков – Посвящение А. А. Воейковой «Песни короля Регнера»
- Николай Языков – Послание к Кулибину (Какой огонь тогда блистал)
- Николай Языков – Послание к Ф. И. Иноземцеву (Да сохранит тебя великий русский бог)
- Николай Языков – Послание к А. Н. Очкину (О, ты, с которым я, от юношеских лет)
- Николай Языков – Поэт (Радушно рабствует поэту)
- Николай Языков – Подражание псалму XIV
- Николай Языков – Подражание псалму
- Николай Языков – Пловец (Воют волны, скачут волны)
- Николай Языков – Песня (Я жду тебя, когда вечерней мглою)
- Николай Языков – Песня (Пусть свободны и легки)
- Николай Языков – Песня (От сердца дружные с вином)
- Николай Языков – Песня (Налей и мне, товарищ мой)
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
