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:
- Anacreontics Drinking
- Альфред де Мюссе – Все мною предано забвенью
- Lovers since Eternity by Preeth Nambiar
- Sonnet 120: That you were once unkind befriends me now by William Shakespeare
- The Tame Bird Was In A Cage by Rabindranath Tagore
- Love Is Just Like The Rain
- Robert Burns: First Six Verses Of The Ninetieth Psalm Versified, The :
- June Dreams, In January by Sidney Lanier
- Lovesong by Ted Hughes
- Владимир Маяковский – Эй, онанисты, кричите «Ура!»
- An Ode of the Birth of our Saviour by Robert Herrick
- Into My Heart an Air that Kills poem – A. E. Housman
- Анатолий Жигулин – Мне помнится рудник Бутугычаг
- Telescopes In The Square by Graham Rowlands
- Impromptu on Mrs. Riddell’s Birthday by Robert Burns
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
- On Hermocratia (From The Greek) by William Cowper
- On Flaxman’s Penelope by William Cowper
- On Flatteries (From The Greek) by William Cowper
- On Female Inconstancy (From The Greek) by William Cowper
- On Envy (From The Greek) by William Cowper
- On Delia (Bid Adieu, My Sad Heart) by William Cowper
- On An Ugly Fellow (From The Greek) by William Cowper
- On An Old Woman (From The Greek) by William Cowper
- On An Infant (From The Greek) by William Cowper
- On A True Friend (From The Greek) by William Cowper
- On A Thief (From The Greek) by William Cowper
- On A Spaniel, Called Beau, Killing A Young Bird by William Cowper
- On A Similar Character (From The Greek) by William Cowper
- On A Plant Of Virgin’s-Bower, Designed To Cover A Garden-seat by William Cowper
- On A Mistake In His Translation Of Homer by William Cowper
- On A Miser (From The Greek) by William Cowper
- On A Miser, 3 (From The Greek) by William Cowper
- On A Miser, 2 (From The Greek) by William Cowper
- On A Mischievous Bull, Which The Owner Him Sold At The Author’s Instance by William Cowper
- On A Good Man (From The Greek) by William Cowper
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.