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:
- Новелла Матвеева – Я, говорит, не воин
- Ольга Берггольц – Таков мой подарок тебе за измену
- Николай Заболоцкий – Подводный город
- Олег Бундур – Вечером
- Brothers poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Ольга Ермолаева – Вот сойдешь с ума и станешь Юрия
- Olney Hymn 7: Vanity of the World by William Cowper
- Ольга Берггольц – Озерный край
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Маленькой Женни
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Сознание
- Hymn by Sidney Godolphin
- Dear Bhikkhu A Eulogy
- Ballade Of Dead Ladies poem – Andrew Lang poems
- From The ‘Antigone’ by William Butler Yeats
- Николай Заболоцкий – Вечерний бар
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
- The Merry Guide poem – A. E. Housman
- The Lent Lily poem – A. E. Housman
- The Laws of God, The Laws of Man poem – A. E. Housman
- The Lads in Their Hundreds poem – A. E. Housman
- The Lads in Their Hundreds poem – A. E. Housman
- The Isle Of Portland poem – A. E. Housman
- The Immortal Part poem – A. E. Housman
- The Immortal Part poem – A. E. Housman
- The Grizzly Bear poem – A. E. Housman
- The Fairies Break Their Dances poem – A. E. Housman
- The Chestnut Casts His Flambeaux poem – A. E. Housman
- Tell me not here, it needs not saying poem – Alfred Edward Housman
- Tell me not here, it needs not saying poem – Alfred Edward Housman
- Shot? So Quick, So Clean an Ending? poem – A. E. Housman
- Shot? So Quick, So Clean an Ending? poem – A. E. Housman
- Say, Lad, Have You Things to Do? poem – A. E. Housman
- Say, Lad, Have You Things to Do? poem – A. E. Housman
- Reveille poem – A. E. Housman
- Others, I Am Not the First poem – A. E. Housman
- Others, I Am Not the First poem – A. E. Housman
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
