A poem by Alan Dugan
I live inside of a machine
or machines. Every time one
goes off another starts. Why
don’t I go outside and sleep
on the ground. It is because
I’m scared of the open night
and stars looking down at me
as God’s eyes, full of questions;
and when I do sleep out alone
I wake up soaking wet
with the dew-fall and am
being snuffed at by a female fox
who stinks from being skunked.
Also there are carrion insects
climbing my private parts. Therefore
I would find shelter in houses,
rented or owned. Anything that money
can build or buy is better than
the nothing of the sky at night,
the stars being the visible past.
A few random poems:
- Love’s Unity poem – Alfred Austin
- An Extempore poem – John Keats poems
- Paraphrase of the First Psalm by Robert Burns
- Watching Unto God In The Night Season (2) by William Cowper
- Юрий Левитанский – Мое поколение
- Merrow Down by Rudyard Kipling
- The Widow at Windsor by Rudyard Kipling
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Чёрный цвет
- The Skies by William Cullen Bryant
- Every day I bear a burden by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Юрий Кузнецов – Простота милосердия
- Talk by Stephen Vincent Benet
- The First Part: Sonnet 13 – O sacred blush, impurpling cheeks’ pure skies by William Drummond
- Вероника Тушнова – Ты любил, и я тебя любила
- Not Waving But Drowning by Stevie Smith
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
- At the Party by W H Auden
- Old People’s Home by W H Auden
- O What Is That Sound by W H Auden
- O Tell Me The Truth About Love by W H Auden
- Nocturne by W H Auden
- A New Age by W H Auden
- Like A Vocation by W H Auden
- Let A Florid Music Praise by W H Auden
- Law, Like Love by W H Auden
- At Last the Secret is Out by W H Auden
- Lady Weeping at the Crossroads by W H Auden
- It’s No Use Raising A Shout by W H Auden
- In the Time of War, XII by W H Auden
- In Praise Of Limestone by W H Auden
- Here War Is Simple by W H Auden
- Give me a doctor by W H Auden
- from The Cave of Making by W H Auden
- from In Time of War by W H Auden
- Friday’s Child by W H Auden
- Friday’s Child by W H Auden
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.