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:
- English Poetry. Francis Turner Palgrave. A Churchyard in Oxfordshire. Фрэнсис Тернер Палгрев.
- I the People poem – Alice Notley
- 1991-II by Wendell Berry
- Олег Бундур – Семейный совет
- Heaven–Haven: A Nun Takes The Veil poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- I am not ashamed of myself by Swami Aaron Thomas
- A Soldier’s Reprieve by William Topaz McGonagall
- By That Lake, Whose Gloomy Shore by Thomas Moore
- Occupy the Wall Street by Sunil Sharma
- Springfield Magical by Vachel Lindsay
- In Praise Of England poem – Alfred Austin
- Иван Киуру – Человек
- To Delia by William Cowper
- The Queen’s Rival by Sarojini Naidu
- Sonnet 94: They that have power to hurt and will do none by William Shakespeare
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
- Flowers of Sion: Sonnet 3 – Look how the flower by William Drummond
- Flowers of Sion: Sonnet 11 – The last and greatest herald by William Drummond
- Flowers From Sion: Sonnet 25 – More oft than once death whispered by William Drummond
- Faith by John Oxenham
- Exodus Of The Heart by Wilmer Escovar
- Everymaid by John Oxenham
- E.A. Nov. 6, 1900 by John Oxenham
- Don’t Worry by John Oxenham
- Dedication by Wole Soyinka
- Darkness And Light by John Oxenham
- Countrywomen by Katherine Mansfield
- Cold by Witt Wittmann
- Civilian and Soldier by Wole Soyinka
- Cigarettes And Whiskey And Wild, Wild Women by Anne Sexton
- Bring Us The Light by John Oxenham
- Better And Best by John Oxenham
- Because I’ve Learned by William Ellery Leonard
- Alone You Passed by William Ellery Leonard
- All’s Well! by John Oxenham
- Aftershock by William Marr
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.