A poem by Alan Dugan
Because of the unaccountable spirit of the troops
oh we were marched as we were never marched before
and flanked them off from home. Stupid Meade
was after them, head on to tail, but we convinced
him, finally, to flank, flank, cut off their head.
He finally understood, the idiot, and got a fort
named after him, for wisdom. He probably thought
Lee would conquer Washington from Appomattox
if he, Meade, should march his infantry behind
him, Lee. Ah well, the unaccountable spirit of the troops
triumphed, Meade got his fort, Grant got his presidency,
Sherman got his motto, what was it? War is heck?, Lee got a military school
for the education of young Southern gentlemen, and the Union
Army was taken over by Southern noncommissioned officers
in the wars against the Indians to the west. I know all
about this, I know who won, I served under them
for three hundred and fifty years in World War II,
just long enough not to be called a rookie but a veteran,
and realized the rank and order of my enemies:
first, the West Point officers; second, the red-neck sergeants;
third, the Nazis and perhaps the Japanese. I won
all of these wars as a private soldier, for a while,
and am happy to have done so: without me
Hitler and Hirohito would he ruling the world
instead of America and Russia, but I still will not
drive through Georgia with New York license plates.
A few random poems:
- The Winds Out of the West Land Blow poem – A. E. Housman
- Vivien
- The English Flag by Rudyard Kipling
- On Catullus by Walter Savage Landor
- Николай Языков – Услад
- Олег Чупров – Он впадает в смятенье
- Владимир Маяковский – Головотяпам
- The Emigrant
- This Month The Almonds Bloom At Kandahar
- Яков Полонский – Памяти В. М. Гаршина
- Иннокентий Анненский – Леконт де Лиль. Из стихотворения «Призраки»
- On Elphinstone’s Translation of Martial’s Epigrams by Robert Burns
- Borrowed Verses by Subhash Misra
- Burning Oneself Out
- Ros poem – Andrew Marvell poems
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
- The First Part: Sonnet 10 – Fair Moon, who with thy cold and silver shine by William Drummond
- The First Part: Sonnet 1 – In my first years, and prime yet not at height by William Drummond
- The Editor by William Ellery Leonard
- The Book Of The World by William Drummond
- The Beggar by William Ellery Leonard
- Reading by William Marr
- Premature Blindness by Winston Riley
- May-Night by William Ellery Leonard
- Man’s Knowledge – Ingorance in the Mysteries of God by William Drummond
- Indian Summer by William Ellery Leonard
- In the Small Hours by Wole Soyinka
- In Christ there is No East Or West by John Oxenham
- His Mercy Endureth For Ever by John Oxenham
- Harp Song of the Dane Women by Rudyard Kipling
- God Is Good by John Oxenham
- Gadara, A.D. 31 by John Oxenham
- Freemen by John Oxenham
- Free Men Of God by John Oxenham
- For the Men at the Front by John Oxenham
- Flowers Of The Dust by John Oxenham
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.