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:
- Calais, August 1802 by William Wordsworth
- Age by Robert Creeley
- City of Ships. by Walt Whitman
- To George Felton Mathew poem – John Keats poems
- The Old Stone Cross by William Butler Yeats
- A Man Young And Old: VIII. Summer And Spring by William Butler Yeats
- Inspiration
- At Algeciras; A Meditaton Upon Death by William Butler Yeats
- A Girl Sang a Song poem – Aleksandr Blok poems | Poetry Monster
- Анатолий Жигулин – Ах, как весело листья летят
- Dinner Date by P.J.Reed
- This Morning by Raymond Carver
- Agatha
- Михаил Лермонтов – Забудь опять свои надежды
- A Whispered Tale by Siegfried Sassoon
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
- Владимир Гиляровский – Грядущее
- Владимир Гиляровский – Чем дальше в море
- Владимир Гиляровский – Белоснежные туманы
- Владимир Гандельсман – Воскрешение матери
- Владимир Домрин – Якутия
- Владимир Динец – Над степью весенней
- Владимир Данько – Верхом на палочке
- Владимир Корнилов – Звезды
- Владимир Корнилов – Жизнь
- Владимир Корнилов – Женщины
- Владимир Корнилов – Жара
- Владимир Корнилов – Зачем
- Владимир Корнилов – Яблоки
- Владимир Корнилов – Халабуда
- Владимир Корнилов – Вязальщица
- Владимир Корнилов – Встреча
- Владимир Корнилов – Ворон
- Владимир Корнилов – Военный оркестр
- Владимир Корнилов – Вечер Гарри Каспарова в Политехническом
- Владимир Корнилов – В прачечной
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
