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:
- Apology to Delia by William Cowper
- Longing by Sara Teasdale
- Elegy V. Anno Aet. 20. On The Approach Of Spring (Translated From Milton) by William Cowper
- Idylls Of The King: Song From The Marriage Of Geraint poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Christmas in India by Rudyard Kipling
- Eye By Eye by Nijole Miliauskaite
- A Hymn for Christmas Day by Thomas Chatterton
- Иван Киуру – Песня моряка
- I Have A Friend I Can Proudly Say by Miraj Patel
- Day That I Have Loved by Rupert Brooke
- Blanche Sweet by Vachel Lindsay
- Tame Cat poem – Ezra Pound poems
- All Saints Day 1867
- A Song of a Girl from Loyang by Wang Wei
- “What ails you, Ocean, that nor near nor far” poem – Alfred Austin
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 Instructor by Rudyard Kipling
- The Hyaenas by Rudyard Kipling
- The Houses by Rudyard Kipling
- The Heritage by Rudyard Kipling
- The Greek National Anthem by Rudyard Kipling
- The Grave of the Hundered Head by Rudyard Kipling
- The Gods of the Copybook Headings by Rudyard Kipling
- The Gipsy Trail by Rudyard Kipling
- The Gift of the Sea by Rudyard Kipling
- The Galley-Slave by Rudyard Kipling
- The Floods by Rudyard Kipling
- The Flight by Rudyard Kipling
- The First Chantey by Rudyard Kipling
- The Fires by Rudyard Kipling
- The Female of the Species by Rudyard Kipling
- The Fall of Jock Gillespie by Rudyard Kipling
- The Fairies’ Siege by Rudyard Kipling
- The Fabulists by Rudyard Kipling
- The Explorer by Rudyard Kipling
- The Explanation 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.