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:
- La Belle Dame Sans Merci poem – John Keats poems
- “Beyond the pasture’s withered bents ” poem – Alfred Austin
- Николай Заболоцкий – Поэт
- Snow by Walter de la Mare
- How I Walked Alone in the Jungles of Heaven by Vachel Lindsay
- Photograph of My Father in His Twenty-Second Year by Raymond Carver
- Олег Григорьев – Участковый стал в двери стучать
- Алексей Толстой – Пусть тот, чья честь не без укора
- The Morning Breeze by Mousumi Guha Roy
- Ballade Of Blind Love poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Нина Воронель – Юбилей в доме литераторов
- Presentiment poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- My Rival by Rudyard Kipling
- Cino poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Виктор Колесников – Вороний мат во все концы
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
- Михаил Кузмин – В легкой лени
- Михаил Кузмин – В Канопе жизнь привольная
- Михаил Кузмин – В густом лесу мы дождь пережидали
- Михаил Кузмин – В гроте Венерином мы горим
- Михаил Кузмин – Уж не слышен конский топот
- Михаил Кузмин – Увы, любви своей не скрою
- Михаил Кузмин – Утро (Звезды побледнели)
- Михаил Кузмин – Утраченного чародейства
- Михаил Кузмин – Утешение
- Михаил Кузмин – Туманный день пройдет уныло
- Михаил Кузмин – Трое (Нас было трое)
- Михаил Кузмин – Три раза я его видел лицом к лицу
- Константин Ваншенкин – Городские костры
- Константин Ваншенкин – Ехал я в штабном автомобиле
- Константин Батюшков – На смерть И.П. Пнина
- Константин Батюшков – На поэмы Петру Великому
- Константин Батюшков – На книгу под названием «Смесь»
- Константин Батюшков – Мщение
- Константин Батюшков – Мои пенаты
- Константин Батюшков – Мечта
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
