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:
- A Grace after Meat by Robert Burns
- Epigram—The Toad-eater by Robert Burns
- Владимир Маяковский – Непобедимое оружие
- Is There A Power That Can Sustain And Cheer by William Wordsworth
- Nevermore, Translation of Paul Verlaine’s sonnet: Nevermore by T. Wignesan
- Street Cries by Sarojini Naidu
- Омар Хайям – Когда ветер у розы подол разорвет
- A Study Of Reading Habits by Philip Larkin
- Наталья Хрущева – Дождик и художник
- Ballade Of Youth And Age by William Ernest Henley
- Garden of Sprites by Lyndsey Hylton
- The Egg-Shell by Rudyard Kipling
- Низами Гянджеви – Спать не стоит
- Robert Burns: Epitaph On Wm. Hood, Senr., In Tarbolton:
- Наум Коржавин – Еще в мальчишеские годы
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 Country Of Marriage by Wendell Berry
- Testament by Wendell Berry
- Sabbaths 2001 by Wendell Berry
- Ripening by Wendell Berry
- A Warning To My Readers by Wendell Berry
- Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry
- Like The Water by Wendell Berry
- In this World by Wendell Berry
- In A Motel Parking Lot, Thinking Of Dr. Williams by Wendell Berry
- For The Future by Wendell Berry
- Do not be ashamed by Wendell Berry
- A Meeting by Wendell Berry
- 1991-II by Wendell Berry
- 1991-I by Wendell Berry
- A Terre (being the philosophy of many soldiers) by Wilfred Owen
- Disabled by Wilfred Owen
- Anthem For Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen
- Dulce Et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen
- Conscious by Wilfred Owen
- Insensibility by Wilfred Owen
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.