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:
- Владимир Маяковский – Тропики
- Song—Willie brew’d a Peck o’ Maut by Robert Burns
- A Girl’s Garden by Robert Frost
- Love Sonnet XXVIII poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- Владимир Высоцкий – Вы в огне да и в море вовеки не сыщете брода
- The Columbian Exchange Beginning With Spanish Colonization
- Happiness by Wilfred Owen
- Reply to an Announcement by J. Rankine by Robert Burns
- Наум Коржавин – Никакой истерики
- Let me draw your face by St Antoine de la Vuadi
- Sleep Did Come Wi’ The Dew by William Barnes
- Владимир Луговской – Севастополь
- Canadian Winter by Mike Yuan
- Алексей Толстой – Ушкуйник
- Юлия Друнина – Сочетание
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 Карамзин – Из письма к И. И. Дмитриеву (Что ж может быть любви и счастия быстрее)
- Николай Карамзин – Из мелодрамы Петр Великий (Жил был в свете добрый царь)
- Николай Карамзин – Истина
- Николай Карамзин – Impromptu графине Р, которой в одной святошной игре досталось быть королевою
- Николай Карамзин – Илья Муромец
- Николай Карамзин – Граф Гваринос
- Николай Карамзин – Господину Дмитриеву на болезнь его (Болезнь есть часть живущих в мире)
- Николай Карамзин – Гимн слепых
- Николай Карамзин – Гимн
- Николай Карамзин – Филлиде
- Николай Карамзин – Эпитафия (Он жил в сем мире для того)
- Николай Карамзин – Эпитафия Джону Гею
- Николай Карамзин – Эпиграмма (Я знаю, для чего Крадон)
- Николай Карамзин – Две песни
- Николай Карамзин – Дурной вкус
- Николай Карамзин – Делиины слова
- Николай Карамзин – Часто здесь в юдоли мрачной
- Николай Карамзин – Берег
- Николай Карамзин – Анакреонтические стихи А. А. Петрову
- Николай Карамзин – Алина
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.