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:
- Sonnet CXXII by William Shakespeare
- William Strode – William Strode
- When the Assault Was Intended to the City poem – John Milton poems
- We Two—How Long We were Fool’d. by Walt Whitman
- Heaven and You by Samuel Stephen Wakdok
- Top Benefits of Wearing Peridot Birthstone
- Константин Ваншенкин – Ехал я в штабном автомобиле
- Огюст Барбье – Аллегри
- Анатолий Жигулин – Иду в полях
- The Wild Goose’s Will by Mike Yuan
- Daddy, daddy, I can’t go to school by Raj Arumugam
- Gray Dawn by Satish Verma
- The Phoenix and the Turtle by William Shakespeare
- Come, Let Us Find by William Henry Davies
- The Day Is Gone, And All Its Sweets Are Gone poem – John Keats poems
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
- A Serenade poem – Alexander Pushkin
- A Magic Moment I Remember poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Winter – The Fourth Pastoral, or Daphne poem – Alexander Pope
- Vertumnus and Pomona : Ovid’s Metamorphoses, book 14 [v. 623-771] poem – Alexander Pope
- Verses Left by Mr. Pope poem – Alexander Pope
- Translation of a Prayer of Brutus poem – Alexander Pope
- To the Author of a Poem Entitled Succession poem – Alexander Pope
- To Mrs. M. B. On Her Birthday poem – Alexander Pope
- To Mr. Thomas Southern, on his Birth-Day poem – Alexander Pope
- To Lady Mary Wortley Montagu poem – Alexander Pope
- The Three Gentle Shepherds poem – Alexander Pope
- The Temple of Fame poem – Alexander Pope
- The Messiah : A Sacred Eclogue poem – Alexander Pope
- The Looking-Glass. : on Mrs. Pulteney poem – Alexander Pope
- The Iliad: Book VI (excerpt) poem – Alexander Pope
- The Fable of Dryope – Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book 9, [v. 324-393] poem – Alexander Pope
- The Dying Christian to His Soul poem – Alexander Pope
- The Dunciad: Book IV poem – Alexander Pope
- The Dunciad: Book III. poem – Alexander Pope
- The Dunciad: Book II. poem – Alexander Pope
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.