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:
- The Clasp by Sharon Olds
- Et Le Marbre Creuse… by Martine Morillon-Carreau
- Between going and staying the day wavers by Octavio Paz
- the_prison_of_the_past.html
- Song from Arcadia by Sir Philip Sidney
- A Tribute to Mr J. Graham Henderson, The World’s Fair Judge by William Topaz McGonagall
- Николай Глазков – Поэзия! Ты не потерпишь фальши
- The Cremona Violin poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Николай Заболоцкий – Бетховен
- Николай Языков – Вторая присяга
- Doomes-Day: The Fourth Houre by William Alexander
- Laila and the Khalifa by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- New Land
- Soil by Roger McGough
- Morning Midday And Evening Sacrifice poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
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
- Epilogue poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Envoi poem – Ezra Pound poems
- E.P. Ode Pour L’election De Son Sepulchre poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Dance Figure poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Cino poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Canto XLIX poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Canto XIII poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Canto I poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Cantico del Sole poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Before Sleep poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Ballad of the Goodly Fere poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Ballad for Gloom poem – Ezra Pound poems
- And the days are not full enough poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Ancient Music poem – Ezra Pound poems
- An Immorality poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Alba poem – Ezra Pound poems
- A Virginal poem – Ezra Pound poems
- A Pact poem – Ezra Pound poems
- A Girl by Ezra Pound
- John Milton As Author of Pornographic Verse: An Extempore Upon a Faggot
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
