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:
- In A Restaurant by Sara Teasdale
- Rich Days by William Henry Davies
- Sonnet CXXIX by William Shakespeare
- Жан Расин – Гофолия
- Speaking the Language of Deer by Martin Willitts Jr.
- Old Ireland. by Walt Whitman
- Polly’s Tree by Sylvia Plath
- Валерий Брюсов – Глупое сердце, о чем же печалиться
- Morning Poem #43 by Wanda Phipps
- Олег Бундур – Поссорились
- When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be poem – John Keats poems
- The Journey by Yvor Winters
- Orlando Furioso Canto 23 by Ludovico Ariosto
- Lines to an Old Sweetheart by Robert Burns
- Longing by Sara Teasdale
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 Корнилов – Прямота
- Владимир Корнилов – Пророк
- Владимир Корнилов – Происхождение
- Владимир Корнилов – Прежнее слово
- Владимир Корнилов – Повторение
- Владимир Корнилов – Погодинка
- Владимир Корнилов – Платформа 126-го км
- Владимир Корнилов – Пишущая машинка
- Владимир Корнилов – Париж
- Владимир Корнилов – Отходная
- Владимир Корнилов – Останкинская башня
- Владимир Корнилов – Одиссей
- Владимир Корнилов – Обещание
- Владимир Корнилов – Нищий
- Владимир Корнилов – Незадача
- Владимир Корнилов – Неподвижность
- Владимир Корнилов – Небо
- Владимир Корнилов – Надежда
- Владимир Корнилов – На колоннаде
- Владимир Корнилов – Музыка для себя
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
