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:
- Oblivion by Satish Verma
- Ольга Седакова – Ни темной старины заветные преданья
- To Prince Charles by William Alexander
- Ballade Of His Books poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Владимир Маяковский – Вот что говорил Ленин на съезде политпросветов (Главполитпросвет №385)
- Listen To The Mustn’ts by Shel Silverstein
- Epigram on a Swearing Coxcomb by Robert Burns
- Mark
- The Seven Sages by William Butler Yeats
- Robert Burns: O Steer Her Up An’ Haud Her Gaun:
- Autumnal Sonnet by William Allingham
- Наталья Шевченко – Привилегия
- Breathing Stars, Inspiration and the Labyrinth of Correspondence
- Vote Excerpt
- Culver Dell And The Squire by William Barnes
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
- Awed by her splendor by Sappho
- To Aphrodite by Sappho
- And their feet move by Sappho
- Anactoria by Sappho
- An Epithalamium by Sappho
- Although they are by Sappho
- In Adoration by Sappho
- A Lament For Adonis by Sappho
- A Hymn To Venus by Sappho
- Youth And The Pilgrim by Sara Teasdale
- Triolets by Sara Teasdale
- To L. R. E. by Sara Teasdale
- To A Picture Of Eleanor Duse by Sara Teasdale
- To A Castillan Song by Sara Teasdale
- Since There Is No Escape by Sara Teasdale
- The Wine by Sara Teasdale
- The Wind by Sara Teasdale
- The Wind In The Hemlock by Sara Teasdale
- The Wayfarer by Sara Teasdale
- The Wanderer by Sara Teasdale
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.