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:
- Feelings Of The Tyrolese by William Wordsworth
- Reverie Zahir U Din
- Anthem For Good Fryday by William Strode
- Sonnet 78: So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse by William Shakespeare
- Counting Sheep by Russell Edson
- The Lent Lily by A. E. Housman
- Robert Burns: The Raptures Of Folly:
- Imitations of Horace: The First Epistle of the Second Book poem – Alexander Pope
- Testament by Wendell Berry
- Rile Me Up! by Michael D Wentworth
- Алексей Жемчужников – Радостные куплеты
- Robert Burns: My Nanie’s Awa:
- Омар Хайям – Из допущенных в рай и повергнутых в ад
- At Ease by Walter de la Mare
- Новелла Матвеева – Иней
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
- Consider This And In Our Time by W H Auden
- The Common Life by W H Auden
- Cocaine Lil and Morphine Sue by W H Auden
- Christmas Oratio by W H Auden
- Carry Her Over the Water by W H Auden
- Canzone by W H Auden
- Calypso by W H Auden
- Base Words Are Uttered by W H Auden
- Autumn Song by W H Auden
- August 1968 by W H Auden
- Atlantis by W H Auden
- As I Walked Out One Evening by W. H. Auden
- As We Like It by W H Auden
- As the poets have mournfully sung by W H Auden
- Are You There? by W H Auden
- After Reading a Child’s Guide to Modern Physics by W. H. Auden
- Academic Graffiti by W H Auden
- A Walk After Dark by W H Auden
- A New Year Greeting by W H Auden
- Continual Conversation With A Silent Man by Wallace Stevens
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.