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:
- Knoxville Tennessee by Nikki Giovanni
- Владимир Костров – Душа, не кайся и не майся
- The Despair
- The Inn Of Earth by Sara Teasdale
- With How Sad Steps, O Moon, Thou Climb’st the Sky by William Wordsworth
- The Wolf and the Dog by William Somervile
- Teenager by Patrick Connors
- I Grieved For Buonaparte by William Wordsworth
- Алексей Толстой – Прогулка с подругой жизни
- Низами Гянджеви – Искендер-наме – Страница 7 из 15
- After Yesterday poem – A. R. Ammons poems | Poetry Monster
- Николай Карамзин – Послание к Александру Алексеевичу Плещееву
- Владимир Луговской – Обращение
- On A Good Man (From The Greek) by William Cowper
- Николай Карамзин – Странные люди
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
- Three Songs Of Zahir U Din
- Thoughts Mahomed Akram
- Though In My Firmament Thou Wilt Not Shine
- This Month The Almonds Bloom At Kandahar
- There Is No Breeze To Cool The Heat Of Love
- The Window Overlooking The Harbour
- The Tom Toms
- The Temple Dancing Girl
- The Teak Forest
- The Singer
- The River Of Pearls At Fez Translation
- The Rice Was Under Water
- The Rice Boat
- The Regret Of The Ranee In The Hall Of Peacocks
- The Rao Of Ilore
- The Plains
- The Net Of Memory
- The Masters
- The Lute Player Of Casa Blanca
- The Lament Of Yasmini The Dancing Girl
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.