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:
- Bitterness by Philip Levine
- You Will Forget! by Timothy Thomas Fortune
- Inversnaid poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- In Midas’ Country by Sylvia Plath
- Hymn poem – A. R. Ammons poems | Poetry Monster
- Sepukku
- Players Ask For A Blessing On The Psalteries And On Themselves by William Butler Yeats
- Attack by Siegfried Sassoon
- The Daughter Goes To Camp by Sharon Olds
- Владимир Высоцкий – Водой наполненные горсти
- Олег Бундур – На высоком берегу
- Monody on a Lady, famed for her Caprice by Robert Burns
- The Blessed Virgin Compared To The Air We Breathe poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Fragments by William Butler Yeats
- The Dawn Of American Literature
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
- Olney Hymn 26: On Opening A Place For Social Prayer by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 24: Prayer For Children by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 23: Pleading For And With Youth by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 22: Prayer For A Blessing In The Young by William Cowper
- Lines Addressed To Dr. Darwin, Author Of The ‘Botanic Garden.’ by William Cowper
- Joy In Martyrdom by William Cowper
- Invitation To The Redbreast by William Cowper
- Inscription For The Tomb Of Mr. Hamilton by William Cowper
- Inscription For A Stone Erected At The Sowing Of A Grove Of Oaks At Chillington, Anno 1791 by William Cowper
- Inscription For A Stone Erected At The Sowing Of A Grove Of Oaks At Chillington, Anno 1790 by William Cowper
- Inscription For A Moss-House In The Shrubbery At Weston by William Cowper
- Inscription For A Hermitage In The Author’s Garden by William Cowper
- In Seditionem Horrendam, Corruptelis Gallicus Ut Fertue, Londini Nuper Exortam by William Cowper
- In Memory Of The Late John Thornton, Esq. by William Cowper
- In A Letter To C. P. Esq. In Imitation Of Shakspeare by William Cowper
- In A Letter To C. P. Esq. Ill With The Rheumatism by William Cowper
- Hymn For The Use Of The Sunday School At Olney by William Cowper
- Hope, Like The Short-lived Ray That Gleams Awhile by William Cowper
- Gratitude And Love To God by William Cowper
- Gratitude, Addressed To Lady Hesketh 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.