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:
- How to Locate, Hire, and Work With an Article Writer
- The Kingdom by Rudyard Kipling
- Ode to Wine
- Only Breath by Jelaluddin Rumi
- Lightning In The Dark Night Skies
- Kinetic Poem 2 by Roger McGough
- Федор Сологуб – В его саду растет рябина
- Альфред де Мюссе – Ива (Как придется мне покинуть свет)
- Missile – A Tanka Poem
- Sonnet 25: Let those who are in favour with their stars by William Shakespeare
- Outset by Mike Yuan
- Альфред де Мюссе – Слова отчаянья прекрасней всех других
- I don’t want to have you by Vinko Kalinic
- Comments: How to Write a Critical Appreciation of a Poem
- A Song at Cock-Crow by Rudyard Kipling
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 Song of the Women by Rudyard Kipling
- The Song of the Sons by Rudyard Kipling
- The Song of the Old Guard by Rudyard Kipling
- The Song of the Little Hunter by Rudyard Kipling
- The Song of the Dead by Rudyard Kipling
- The Song of the Cities by Rudyard Kipling
- The Song of Seven Cities by Rudyard Kipling
- The Settler by Rudyard Kipling
- The Servant When He Reigneth by Rudyard Kipling
- The Sergeant’s Weddin’ by Rudyard Kipling
- The Secret of the Machines by Rudyard Kipling
- The Second Voyage by Rudyard Kipling
- The Sea-Wife by Rudyard Kipling
- The Sea And the Hills by Rudyard Kipling
- The Sacrifice of Er-Heb by Rudyard Kipling
- The Rupaiyat of Omar Kal’vin by Rudyard Kipling
- The Rowers by Rudyard Kipling
- The Rhyme of the Three Sealers by Rudyard Kipling
- The Rhyme of the Three Captains by Rudyard Kipling
- The Return by Rudyard Kipling
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.