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:
- Владислав Ходасевич – Опять во тьме. У наших ног
- Gimmick In A Geisha by Vaishnavi Prakash
- Robert Burns: Lines To A Gentleman,: Who had sent the Poet a Newspaper, and offered to continue it free of Expense.
- Loot by Rudyard Kipling
- Владимир Маяковский – Все на фронт добровольцами! Пока… (РОСТА)
- Mild is the Parting Year by Walter Savage Landor
- Ольга Высотская – Детский сад
- The Identification by Roger McGough
- Михаил Лермонтов – Я видел тень блаженства
- Омар Хайям – Миг придёт, и смерть исторгнет жадно
- Юлий Даниэль – Дом
- Валерий Брюсов – Фаэтон
- Vaulting by Satish Verma
- Николай Языков – Элегия (Ночь безлунная звездами)
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Цветок
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
- Гавриил Державин – Философы, пьяный и трезвый
- Гавриил Державин – Амур и Психея
- Гавриил Державин – Жуковскому и Родзянке, приславшим с большими похвалами автору перевод его оды «Бог» на французском языке
- Гавриил Державин – Желание в горняя
- Гавриил Державин – Жан Расин. Рассказ Терамена
- Гавриил Державин – Задумчивость
- Гавриил Державин – Храповицкому (Храповицкий! дружбы знаки)
- Гавриил Державин – Похвала за правосудие
- Гавриил Державин – Похвала комару
- Гавриил Державин – Послание Мурзы Багрима к царевне Доброславе
- Гавриил Державин – Поминки
- Гавриил Державин – Покаяние
- Гавриил Державин – Подражание псалму (Терпел я, уповал на Бога)
- Гавриил Державин – Песенка
- Гавриил Державин – Пчелка
- Гавриил Державин – Охотник
- Гавриил Державин – Осень
- Гавриил Державин – Оковы
- Гавриил Державин – О удовольствии
- Гавриил Державин – Надежда на бога
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
