A poem by Alan Dugan
She said: “I’m god and all
of this and that world and love
garbage and slaughter all the time
and spring once a year. Once a year
I like to love. You can adjust
to the discipline or not,
and your sacrificial act
called ‘Fruitfulness in Decay’
would be pleasing to me
as long as you did it with joy.
Otherwise, the prayer ‘Decay,
Ripe in the Fruitfulness’
will do if you have to despair.”
Prayer
You know that girl of yours
I liked? The one with strong legs,
grey eyes, weak in the chest
but always bouncing around?
The one they call “The Laugh,”
“The Walk,” “That Cunt,” “The Brain,”
“Talker, Talker, Talker,” and
“The Iron Woman”? Well,
she’s gone, gone gone, gone
gone gone to someone else,
and now they say that she,
“My Good,” “My True,” “My Beautiful,”
is sick to her god-damned
stomach and rejects all
medication. What do you do
to your physical praisers that
they fall apart so fast
or leave me? She needs help now,
yours or that prick’s,
I don’t know which.
“I have worked out
my best in belief
of the rule, ‘The best
for the best results
in love of the best,’
or, ‘To hell with it:
I am just god:
it’s not my problem.”‘
I will sit out this passion
unreconciled, thanks: there are
too many voices. My visions
are not causal but final:
there’s no place to go to
but on. I’ll dance at the ends
of the white strings of nerves
and love for a while, your slave.
Oh stupid condition, I drink
to your Presences in hope of sleep
asleep, and continuity awake.

A few random poems:
- Владимир Высоцкий – Кто за чем бежит
- To a foil’d European Revolutionaire. by Walt Whitman
- Asleep! O Sleep A Little While, White Pearl! poem – John Keats poems
- Владимир Солоухин – У моря
- To His Mistress In Absence by Torquato Tasso
- A Perfect World by Robby Charters
- Yesterday’s Mishaps by Mary Etta Metcalf
- The Choice by William Butler Yeats
- Envoi poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Николай Карамзин – К портрету Ломоносова
- To His Noble Friend, Mr. Richard Lovelace, Upon His Poems poem – Andrew Marvell poems
- Алексей Жемчужников – Зимнее чувство
- Death by Rainer Maria Rilke
- Lover’s Gifts XLII: Are You a Mere Picture by Rabindranath Tagore
- Robert Burns: Complimentary Versicles To Jessie Lewars: The Menagerie
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
- Call It Music by Philip Levine
- Black Stone On Top Of Nothing by Philip Levine
- Bitterness by Philip Levine
- Berenda Slough by Philip Levine
- Belle Isle, 1949 by Philip Levine
- At Bessemer by Philip Levine
- Any Night by Philip Levine
- Another Song by Philip Levine
- Animals Are Passing From Our Lives by Philip Levine
- An Abandoned Factory, Detroit by Philip Levine
- Among Children by Philip Levine
- A Woman Waking by Philip Levine
- A Theory Of Prosody by Philip Levine
- A Sleepless Night by Philip Levine
- Sonnet III: With how sad steps by Sir Philip Sidney
- Sonnet II: Not At First Sight by Sir Philip Sidney
- Sonnet I: Loving In Truth by Sir Philip Sidney
- Song from Arcadia by Sir Philip Sidney
- Song by Sir Philip Sidney
- Sleep by Sir Philip Sidney
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
Alan Dugan (1923 – 2003) an American poet, a contemporary classic of American poetry.