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:
- Robert Burns: Auld Lang Syne:
- Love And Madness by Thomas Campbell
- SNAKE CHARMING by Satish Verma
- Others, I Am Not the First poem – A. E. Housman
- Олег Григорьев – Угро
- The Man That Poetry Made
- Казалось, осталось недолго
- The Pact by Sharon Olds
- Гавриил Державин – Ключ
- Ольга Берггольц – Разведчик
- I Know From my Bed by Michael Lee Johnson
- Introspection In Evening poem – Amy Cavanaugh poems | Poems and Poetry
- Robert Burns: On An Innkeeper Nicknamed “The Marquis”:
- Final Notions
- By The Camp Fire
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
- An Afternoon by Raymond Carver
- Watching the Bird Watcher by Richard Schiffman
- Virtual Impressions by Renu Ayyar
- Two Wings by Ricardo Sternberg
- They won’t Know by Rifat Ilgaz
- The Laws of God, The Laws of Man by A. E. Housman
- The Invention of Honey by Ricardo Sternberg
- Swallows by Richard Schiffman
- Supply=Demand by Ricardo Sternberg
- Skyscrapers by Rifat Ilgaz
- Silence by Riju Dave
- Rainbow by Ria De Torres
- Only If I Know by Rifat Ilgaz
- My Search by Renu Ayyar
- My Partner in Crime by Rennu Ayyar
- My Last Poem by Rifat Ilgaz
- Man Versus Satan by Shahida Latif
- Lovers in Cafe by Aiyah De Torres
- LET Go.. by Renu Ayyar
- In Poetry by Rifat Ilgaz
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.