A poem by Alan Dugan
Because of the unaccountable spirit of the troops
oh we were marched as we were never marched before
and flanked them off from home. Stupid Meade
was after them, head on to tail, but we convinced
him, finally, to flank, flank, cut off their head.
He finally understood, the idiot, and got a fort
named after him, for wisdom. He probably thought
Lee would conquer Washington from Appomattox
if he, Meade, should march his infantry behind
him, Lee. Ah well, the unaccountable spirit of the troops
triumphed, Meade got his fort, Grant got his presidency,
Sherman got his motto, what was it? War is heck?, Lee got a military school
for the education of young Southern gentlemen, and the Union
Army was taken over by Southern noncommissioned officers
in the wars against the Indians to the west. I know all
about this, I know who won, I served under them
for three hundred and fifty years in World War II,
just long enough not to be called a rookie but a veteran,
and realized the rank and order of my enemies:
first, the West Point officers; second, the red-neck sergeants;
third, the Nazis and perhaps the Japanese. I won
all of these wars as a private soldier, for a while,
and am happy to have done so: without me
Hitler and Hirohito would he ruling the world
instead of America and Russia, but I still will not
drive through Georgia with New York license plates.
A few random poems:
- Федор Сологуб – Сладко мечтается мне
- Владимир Маяковский – Власть канцелярии – вот слова “бюрократия” перевод… (РОСТА №655)
- The Gardener XXIX: Speak To Me My Love by Rabindranath Tagore
- Иван Крылов – Лиса-строитель (Басня)
- I Can’t Touch The Sun by Shel Silverstein
- Robert Burns: Epitaph On Wm. Hood, Senr., In Tarbolton:
- Diffugere Nives poem – A. E. Housman
- Business Girls poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Robert Burns: O For Ane An’ Twenty, Tam :
- Helen Of Troy by Sara Teasdale
- Commination
- Владимир Маяковский – Для Донбасса формируется поезд с подарками (РОСТА №938)
- Summer – The Second Pastoral; or Alexis poem – Alexander Pope
- Ione, Dead the Long Year poem – Ezra Pound poems
- A Lovers’ Quarrel by Robert Browning
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
- Betrayal poem – Alice Notley
- Before you knew you owned it poem – Alice Walker
- Because We Never Practiced With The Escape Chamber poem – Alice Fulton
- Ballad Of The Skeletons poem – Allen Ginsberg
- About Face poem – Alice Fulton
- A winning lot
- 30th Birthday poem – Alice Notley
- Why?
- Where Are You?
- Tell Me
- Teacher
- Sleep
- Intruder
- Inside/Outside The Window
- Why Feed The Early Signs Of Boredom? poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Upon The Hills Of Georgia poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Under The Blue Skies… poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Under A Portrait Of Jukowsky poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Under A Portrait Of Jukowsky poem – Alexander Pushkin
- To My Friends poem – Alexander Pushkin
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.