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:
- With Ships the Sea was Sprinkled Far and Nigh by William Wordsworth
- Selfish World, Selfish People by Shahbaz Khan
- To Captain H—–d, of the 65th Regiment by Phillis Wheatley
- Look not in my eyes, for fear poem – A. E. Housman
- Thought. by Walt Whitman
- An Arab Shepherd Is Searching For His Goat On Mount Zion by Yehuda Amichai
- Poetry and the Power of Words
- Омар Хайям – Листья дерева жизни, отпущенной мне
- Since We Must Die poem – Alfred Austin
- Hawk Roosting by Ted Hughes
- Grace before and after Meat by Robert Burns
- Astrophel And Stella-Sonnet LIV by Sir Philip Sidney
- Lalila To The Ferengi Lover
- My Lady’s Law by Rudyard Kipling
- On Australian Hills
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 Высоцкий – Я всё чаще думаю о судьях
- Владимир Высоцкий – Я верю в нашу общую звезду
- Владимир Высоцкий – Я уверен, как ни разу в жизни
- Владимир Высоцкий – Я стою, стою спиною к строю
- Владимир Высоцкий – Я сказал врачу: “Я за все плачу!”
- Владимир Высоцкий – Я любил и женщин и проказы
- Владимир Высоцкий – Я был слесарь шестого разряда
- Владимир Высоцкий – Хрущёву
- Владимир Высоцкий – Холодно, метёт кругом
- Владимир Высоцкий – Вы в огне да и в море вовеки не сыщете брода
- Владимир Высоцкий – Вы были у Беллы
- Владимир Высоцкий – Всё с себя снимаю, слишком душно
- Владимир Высоцкий – Всё меньше вас, участники войны
- Владимир Высоцкий – Всё было не так, как хотелось вначале
- Владимир Высоцкий – Все ушли на фронт
- Владимир Высоцкий – Вратарь (Льву Яшину)
- Владимир Высоцкий – Возле города Пекина
- Владимир Высоцкий – Вова испугался
- Владимир Высоцкий – Вот Вы докатились до сороковых
- Владимир Высоцкий – Вот раньше жизнь
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
