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:
- Rapids poem – A. R. Ammons poems | Poetry Monster
- Robert Burns: The Song Of Death: Scene-A Field of Battle. Time of the day-evening. The wounded and dying of the victorious army are supposed to join in the following song.
- STUNNED by Satish Verma
- Владислав Крапивин – А по ночам у высокого плетня
- Альфред де Мюссе – Вспомни обо мне
- Dreamers by Siegfried Sassoon
- Lesson In Grammar by Vernon Scannell
- Verses Printed By Himself On A Flood At Olney by William Cowper
- Triolets by Sara Teasdale
- Epitaph for Maria Wentworth by Thomas Carew
- St. Alphonsus Rodriguez poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Babysitters by Sylvia Plath
- The Fairies Break Their Dances by A. E. Housman
- Robert Burns: Frae The Friends And Land I Love:
- English Poetry. Madison Julius Cawein. Indifference. Мэдисон Джулиус Кавейн.
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
- The Defiance Of Eteocles
- The Decree Of Athena
- The Complaint Of Prometheus
- The Beacon Fires
- The Battle Of Salamis
- Song Of The Furies
- Prometheus Amid Hurricane And Earthquake
- Prayer Artemis
- Lament Two Brothers Slain Each Other039s Hand
- Lament For The Two Brothers Slain By Each Others Hand
- Fragment From Aeschylus
- Complaint Prometheus
- Battle Salamis
- A Prayer For Artemis
- On Twitter
- Victory
- Valediction Forbidding Mourning
- Two Songs
- Stepping Backward
- Snapshots Of A Daughter In Law By Adrienne Rich
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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.