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:
- Огюст Барбье – Жертвы
- Where Is David, the Next King of Israel? by Vachel Lindsay
- Stanzas by William Wordsworth
- Олег Григорьев – Прометей
- Владимир Маяковский – Собственную революцию удушив… (РОСТА №443)
- The Two Terrors poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Waiting by Rohith
- Владимир Высоцкий – Мне в душу ступит кто-то посторонний
- Are You There? by W H Auden
- Robert Burns: Pinned To Mrs. Walter Riddell’s Carriage:
- Tell Me
- Untitled V by Yunus Emre
- Николай Гумилев – Неоромантическая сказка
- Владимир Костров – Поплачь, любимая, поплачь
- Владимир Гиппиус – Закон чего? – закона нет
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 End by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Child-Angel by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Chanpa Flower by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Boat by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Banyan Tree by Rabindranath Tagore
- Superior by Rabindranath Tagore
- Strong Mercy by Rabindranath Tagore
- Still Heart by Rabindranath Tagore
- Song Unsung by Rabindranath Tagore
- Sleep by Rabindranath Tagore
- Sit Smiling by Rabindranath Tagore
- Silent Steps by Rabindranath Tagore
- Signet of Eternity by Rabindranath Tagore
- She by Rabindranath Tagore
- Senses by Rabindranath Tagore
- Seashore by Rabindranath Tagore
- Salutation by Rabindranath Tagore
- Sail Away by Rabindranath Tagore
- Roaming Cloud by Rabindranath Tagore
- Purity by Rabindranath Tagore
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.