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:
- Олег Бундур – Дрова
- Владимир Маяковский – Себе, любимому, посвящает эти строки автор
- Virtual Impressions by Renu Ayyar
- Attack by Siegfried Sassoon
- if_i_were_king.html
- Quality Customer Service – How to Measure Customer Satisfaction
- A Saturday Sunrise by Philo Ikonya
- Olney Hymn 7: Vanity of the World by William Cowper
- Eight O’Clock by Sara Teasdale
- Last Wish by Théophile Gautier
- A Winter Bluejay by Sara Teasdale
- The Road To Ruin by Siegfried Sassoon
- Sonnet XVI. To Kosciusko poem – John Keats poems
- The Gardener XLIV: Reverend Sir, Forgive by Rabindranath Tagore
- Love Sonnet XV poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
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 Eve Of St. Agnes poem – John Keats poems
- The Day Is Gone, And All Its Sweets Are Gone poem – John Keats poems
- Stanzas poem – John Keats poems
- Song of the Indian Maid, from ‘Endymion’ poem – John Keats poems
- Robin Hood poem – John Keats poems
- On The Sea poem – John Keats poems
- On The Grasshopper And Cricket poem – John Keats poems
- On Sitting Down To Read King Lear Once Again poem – John Keats poems
- On Seeing The Elgin Marbles For The First Time poem – John Keats poems
- On Leaving Some Friends At An Early Hour poem – John Keats poems
- On First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer poem – John Keats poems
- On Fame poem – John Keats poems
- Ode To Psyche poem – John Keats poems
- Ode to Fanny poem – John Keats poems
- Ode To Autumn poem – John Keats poems
- Ode To A Nightingale poem – John Keats poems
- Ode On Melancholy poem – John Keats poems
- Ode On Indolence poem – John Keats poems
- Ode On A Grecian Urn poem – John Keats poems
- O Solitude! If I Must With Thee Dwell poem – John Keats poems
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.