A poem by Alan Dugan
For old Billy Dugan, shot in the ass in the Civil War, my father said.
The old wound in my ass
has opened up again, but I
am past the prodigies
of youth’s campaigns, and weep
where I used to laugh
in war’s red humors, half
in love with silly-assed pains
and half not feeling them.
I have to sit up with
an indoor unsittable itch
before I go down late
and weeping to the storm-
cellar on a dirty night
and go to bed with the worms.
So pull the dirt up over me
and make a family joke
for Old Billy Blue Balls,
the oldest private in the world
with two ass-holes and no
place more to go to for a laugh
except the last one. Say:
The North won the Civil War
without much help from me
although I wear a proof
of the war’s obscenity.

A few random poems:
- Across the Street from the Whitmore Home for Girls, 1949 by Rachel McKibbens
- My Mistress Commanding Me to Return Her Letters. by Thomas Carew
- Totem by Sylvia Plath
- Passing by Shaunna Harper
- Yew-Trees by William Wordsworth
- Monologue Of A Commercial Fisherman
- “Once we were happy” by Torquato Tasso
- Hymn by Sidney Godolphin
- In The Forest by Sarojini Naidu
- Night Of Battle by Yvor Winters
- In Every Direction by Ralph Angel
- Михаил Лермонтов – Бартеневой
- And Did Those Feet In Ancient Time by William Blake
- Canto XLIX poem – Ezra Pound poems
- A kiss to the ground by Victoria Rose
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
- On Returning To England poem – Alfred Austin
- Off Mesolongi poem – Alfred Austin
- Nocturnal Vigils poem – Alfred Austin
- Nature And the Book poem – Alfred Austin
- Nature And the Book poem – Alfred Austin
- My Winter Rose poem – Alfred Austin
- Mozart’s Grave poem – Alfred Austin
- Mozart’s Grave poem – Alfred Austin
- Messalina poem – Alfred Austin
- Off Mesolongi poem – Alfred Austin
- Mafeking poem – Alfred Austin
- Madonna poem – Alfred Austin
- Love’s Wisdom poem – Alfred Austin
- Love’s Unity poem – Alfred Austin
- Love’s Harvest poem – Alfred Austin
- Love’s Fitfulness poem – Alfred Austin
- Wordsworth At Dove Cottage poem – Alfred Austin
- Winter Violets poem – Alfred Austin
- The Wind Speaks poem – Alfred Austin
- “Why should I, from this long and losing strife ” poem – Alfred Austin
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.