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:
- Beach Glass poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- Epigramma in Duos montes Amosclivum Et Bilboreum poem – Andrew Marvell poems
- The Rain by Robert Creeley
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песня автомобилиста
- happiness.html
- Tis Time, I Think, By Wenlock Town poem – A. E. Housman
- Федор Сологуб – Скупа Филис, но пыл мятежный
- A Narrow Girdle Of Rough Stones And Crags, by William Wordsworth
- To Homer poem – John Keats poems
- Robert Burns: On A Swearing Coxcomb:
- Владимир Высоцкий – Я всё чаще думаю о судьях
- Ольга Высотская – Первые заморозки
- Владимир Высоцкий – Очи чёрные: Часть I
- The West Wind by William Cullen Bryant
- A Dream Or No by Thomas Hardy
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
- Sonnet I
- Sonnet 12
- Sonnet 11
- Sonnet 10
- Sonnet 08
- Sonnet 07
- Sonnet 06
- Sonnet 05
- Sonnet 04
- Sonnet 03
- Sonnet 02
- Sonnet 01
- Resurgam
- Rendezvous
- On The Cliffs Newport
- On A Theme In The Greek Anthology
- Ode In Memory Of The American Volunteers Fallen For France
- Maktoob
- Lyonesse
- Liebestod
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
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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.