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 Pretty Woman by Robert Browning
- Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath
- Sketch—New Year’s Day, 1790 by Robert Burns
- Come, Rest in this Bosom by Thomas Moore
- Far Within Us #3 by Vasko Popa
- Федор Сологуб – Лиловато-розовый закат
- Icicles round a Tree in Dumfriesshire by Ruth Padel
- Blessings On Children by William Gilmore Simms
- Вероника Тушнова – Утро (Вся ночь без сна)
- Владимир Британишский – И у нас однако ж был Лицей
- John Kinsella’s Lament For Mrs. Mary Moore by William Butler Yeats
- Endless Time by Rabindranath Tagore
- Владимир Корнилов – Щитовидка
- Fool’s Money Bags poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- I looked here by Stephen Crane
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
- Николай Заболоцкий – На лестницах
- Николай Заболоцкий – Можжевеловый куст
- Николай Заболоцкий – Монолог в лесу
- Николай Заболоцкий – Мир однолик, но двойственна природа
- Николай Заболоцкий – Меркнут знаки зодиака
- Николай Заболоцкий – Лодейников
- Николай Заболоцкий – Летний вечер
- Николай Заболоцкий – Лесная сторожка
- Николай Заболоцкий – Ласточка
- Николай Заболоцкий – Кулак, владыка батраков
- Николай Заболоцкий – Кто мне откликнулся в чаще лесной
- Николай Заболоцкий – Когда вдали угаснет свет дневной
- Николай Заболоцкий – Как мыши с котом воевали
- Николай Заболоцкий – Испытание воли
- Николай Заболоцкий – Искушение
- Николай Заболоцкий – Гурзуф ночью
- Николай Заболоцкий – Гроза идет
- Николай Заболоцкий – Городок
- Николай Заболоцкий – Горийская симфония
- Николай Заболоцкий – Голубиная книга
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.