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:
- Passion Of My Heart by Stevens Cadet
- The Mystery by Sara Teasdale
- To Robert Louis Stevenson poem – Alfred Austin
- The Scarecrow by Ross D Tyler
- On Colley Cibber poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Владимир Маяковский – Венера Милосская и Вячеслав Полонский
- Владимир Вишневский – Заявка на романс
- Poem of Joys. by Walt Whitman
- Dedication To The Edition Of 1876 To H.J.A. poem – Alfred Austin
- Владимир Маяковский – Дачный случай
- Gravelly Run poem – A. R. Ammons poems | Poetry Monster
- Николай Языков – Дева ночи
- Ольга Седакова – Ангел Реймса
- Second Epistle to Robert Graham, Esq., of Fintry by Robert Burns
- Владимир Набоков – Забудешь ты меня, как эту ночь забудешь
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
- Warm are the Still and Lucky Miles by W H Auden
- Voltaire At Ferney by W H Auden
- Underneath an Abject Willow by W H Auden
- This Lunar Beauty by W H Auden
- They Wondered Why the Fruit had Been Forbidden by W H Auden
- The Waters by W H Auden
- The Wanderer by W H Auden
- The Two by W H Auden
- The Riddle by W H Auden
- The Quest by W H Auden
- The Quest XII (Vocation) by W H Auden
- The Novelist by W H Auden
- The Labyrinth by W H Auden
- The Hidden Law by W H Auden
- The Geography of the House by W H Auden
- The Dream by W H Auden
- The Common Life by W H Auden
- Thanksgiving for a Habitat by W H Auden
- Taller To-day by W H Auden
- Song Of The Master And Boatswain by W H Auden
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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.