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:
- Lover’s Gifts XLVIII: I Travelled the Old Road by Rabindranath Tagore
- Федор Тютчев – Анненковой (D’une fille du Nord, chetive et languissante)
- Михаил Кузмин – Утешение
- Владимир Маяковский – Чтоб голод нас не передушил к лету… (Главполитпросвет №160)
- The Dunciad: Book III. poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Alchemy by Sara Teasdale
- Анатолий Жигулин – Невыразимы сладкой тишью
- Primacy Of Mind poem – Alfred Austin
- Violet Beauregarde… by Roald Dahl
- By A Norfolk Broad
- Lord when the wise men came from farr by Sidney Godolphin
- Владимир Высоцкий – Тоска немая гложет иногда
- old-boy.html
- Игорь Северянин – Синее
- Doomes-Day: The Third Houre by William Alexander
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
- Transient
- To The Serpent
- To The Nameless Soldier
- The Woman And The Flame
- The Wolf039s Postcript To 039little Red Riding Hood039
- The Riddle
- The Queen
- The Poisoned Present
- The Markets Are Down 2 Amp A Quarter
- The Maharishi And The Baby
- The Immigrant
- The Fallen House
- The Poetry That Is Life
- Take My Hands
- Tablet
- Stroll In A Particle
- Stones
- Spanish Banks
- Somber Song
- Poem65
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.