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:
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- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 78. Again at Christmas did we weave poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Karazah Karl
- Sixteen Dead Men by William Butler Yeats
- Михаил Лермонтов – Вид гор из степей Козлова
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- Kiss Me Again by St Antoine de la Vuadi
- Prayer, Translation of Paul Verlaine’s poem: Prière by T. Wignesan.
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- Sonnet CXIII by William Shakespeare
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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
- Grass is a taut crew; poem – Amy Michelle Mosier poems | Poems and Poetry
- Goddess poem – Amitabh Vikram Dwivedi poems | Poems and Poetry
- Freedom poem – Aminu Ola Rasaq poems | Poems and Poetry
- Dyer Died In Silence poem – Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson poems | Poems and Poetry
- Compassion poem – Amey Deshpande poems | Poems and Poetry
- Beachy Blues poem – Andrew Neil Maternick poems | Poems and Poetry
- Among hills Apache red poem – Amy Michelle Mosier poems | Poems and Poetry
- A song of living poem – Amelia Burr poems | Poems and Poetry
- A dream is a butterfly poem – Amy Michelle Mosier poems | Poems and Poetry
- Ode to Wine
- On The Wedding Of The Aeronaut poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- To E.S. Salomon poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Valley Of Dry Bones poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Passing Show poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- The New Decalogue poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Mad Philosopher poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Legatee poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Key Note poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Hesitating Veteran poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Death Of Grant poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
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.