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:
- Independent at Birth by Suuk Simon Subinimah
- was_then.html
- Diya {original title is Greek, Delta-iota-psi-alpha} poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- What would I do without this world by Samuel Beckett
- Ford o’ Kabul River by Rudyard Kipling
- Ольга Седакова – Три богини
- Низами Гянджеви – Лишь с луной сравниться
- The Thousandth Man by Rudyard Kipling
- Николай Гербель – Ура, объявлена война
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песенка про ребёнка-поросёнка
- Epitaph on “Wee Johnnie” by Robert Burns
- Maudlin by Sylvia Plath
- Низами Гянджеви – Ты видишь: я твой давний друг
- don_juan.html
- Sonnet 121: Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed by William Shakespeare
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
- Return Of The Heroes by Siegfried Sassoon
- In An Underground Dressing Station by Siegfried Sassoon
- Return Of The Heroes by Siegfried Sassoon
- Grandeur Of Ghosts by Siegfried Sassoon
- Prelude: The Troops by Siegfried Sassoon
- On Passing The New Menin Gate by Siegfried Sassoon
- In An Underground Dressing Station by Siegfried Sassoon
- Grandeur Of Ghosts by Siegfried Sassoon
- ‘Blighters’ by Siegfried Sassoon
- At The Cenotaph by Siegfried Sassoon
- Wraiths by Siegfried Sassoon
- Wraiths by Siegfried Sassoon
- Wonderment by Siegfried Sassoon
- Wisdom by Siegfried Sassoon
- Wirers by Siegfried Sassoon
- Wind in the Beechwood by Siegfried Sassoon
- When I’m among a Blaze of Lights by Siegfried Sassoon
- What the Captain Said at the Point-to-Point by Siegfried Sassoon
- Vision by Siegfried Sassoon
- Villon by Siegfried Sassoon
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.