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:
- Drum-Taps. by Walt Whitman
- From An Atlas Of The Difficult World
- Chanson D’Amour by Shaunna Harper
- Эмиль Верхарн – Заблуждение
- Elegy VII. Anno Aetates Undevigesimo (Translated From Milton) by William Cowper
- The Baptistry
- Hobbinol; or The Rural Games – Canto 2 by William Somervile
- Владимир Корнилов – Командировка на Север
- The Furl of Fresh-Leaved Dogrose Down poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Poet poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Владимир Высоцкий – Солдат и привидение
- Solid, Ironical, Rolling Orb. by Walt Whitman
- Владимир Маяковский – Точеные слоны
- Crowdie ever mair (Song) by Robert Burns
- Юлиан Анисимов – Стихи мои, нежные гости
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 Scarecrow by Ross D Tyler
- The (REAL) Tale of the Tortoise and the Hare by Ross D Tyler
- The missing pen by Ross D Tyler
- The Appointment by Ruth Padel
- Ten Years After by Graham Rowlands
- Telescopes In The Square by Graham Rowlands
- South Africa by Ronald G. Auguste
- Shattered Dreams. Broken Promises. by Russell James
- Savour Your Life by Ronald G. Auguste
- Rosslyn To The Prime Minister by Graham Rowlands
- Writing to Onegin by Ruth Padel
- Icicles round a Tree in Dumfriesshire by Ruth Padel
- Pan’s Lament by Rose Mary Boehm
- On The Menu by Graham Rowlands
- Night by Ruth Padel
- Nanna by Ross D Tyler
- My Views of Man by Ronald G. Auguste
- Multi-Miners & Co. Present Ned Kelly by Graham Rowlands
- Miss Worthington by Rose Mary Boehm
- Meant To Be by Russ Pergram
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.