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:
- Sonnet IV. How Many Bards Gild The Lapses Of Time! poem – John Keats poems
- Николай Глазков – Эрмитаж
- Владимир Степанов – Как живете? Что жуете?
- Robert Burns: The Toadeater:
- In Adoration by Sappho
- Untitled XIII by Yunus Emre
- Ольга Берггольц – Первое письмо на Каму
- Владимир Маяковский – Профплакаты
- Омар Хайям – Кто мне скажет что завтра случится со мной
- Омар Хайям – Не устану в неверном театре теней
- Heavy Woman by Sylvia Plath
- A Little Song poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Dream by Robert Burns
- The Shepherd, Looking Eastward, Softly Said by William Wordsworth
- A Greek Girl poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
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
- Lynching
- Kimchi
- The Kingfisher poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Cooling Tower poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- Stacking The Straw poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- Stacking The Straw poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- Gradual Clearing poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- Brought From Beyond poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Hairline Fracture poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Cure At Porlock poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Poem about Sauerkraut
- Cabbage
- Women’s Song Of The Corn poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Women’s Harvest Song poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Women’s Song Of The Corn poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Women’s Harvest Song poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- White Currants poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Vespers poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Two Lacquer Prints poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Twenty-Four Hokku On A Modern Theme poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
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.