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:
- shivering wind by Steve Troyanovich
- Moonless darkness stands between poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Littlle Black-Eyed Rebel by Will McKendree Carleton
- A Cooking Egg by T. S. Eliot
- Константин Бальмонт – Нам нравятся поэты
- Jokes on You by Rohan Dunbar
- Angry People by Roger Hayes
- Федор Сологуб – Сладко мечтается мне
- Sonnet 5: Those hours, that with gentle work did frame by William Shakespeare
- Владимир Маяковский – Раньше офицера только рубить учили… (РОСТА №632)
- The Mountain Tomb by William Butler Yeats
- Question mark remarks by Mark Miller
- How a Little Girl Sang by Vachel Lindsay
- Robert Burns: On John Bushby, Esq., Tinwald Downs:
- Sweetheart by M. T. Metutera
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
- INTO THE LAIR by Satish Verma
- Intimidation by Satish Verma
- In Transit by Satish Verma
- In Thoughtless Mind by Satish Verma
- In Abeyance by Satish Verma
- In a Sombre Mood by Satish Verma
- Impresa by Satish Verma
- Immaculacy by Satish Verma
- I Begin To Think by Satish Verma
- Hurting Dive by Satish Verma
- Homing by Satish Verma
- Pandering by Satish Verma
- Holding On by Satish Verma
- OPTIONS by Satish Verma
- OFF-LIMITS by Satish Verma
- Oblivion by Satish Verma
- O You by Satish Verma
- NIGHT RAID by Satish Verma
- Night Light by Satish Verma
- Muttering by Satish Verma
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.