A poem by Alan Dugan
Who knows whether the sea heals or corrodes?
The wading, wintered pack-beasts of the feet
slough off, in spring, the dead rind of the shoes’
leather detention, the big toe’s yellow horn
shines with a natural polish, and the whole
person seems to profit. The opposite appears
when dead sharks wash up along the beach
for no known reason. What is more built
for winning than the swept-back teeth,
water-finished fins, and pure bad eyes
these old, efficient forms of appetite
are dressed in? Yet it looks as if the sea
digested what it wished of them with viral ease
and threw up what was left to stink and dry.
If this shows how the sea approaches life
in its propensity to feed as animal entire,
then sharks are comforts, feet are terrified,
but they vacation in the mystery and why not?
Who knows whether the sea heals or corrodes?:
what the sun burns up of it, the moon puts back.
A few random poems:
- The Ballad of East and West by Rudyard Kipling
- The Silent Muse poem – Alfred Austin
- Виталий Бакалдин – Я не рос среди берез
- Jock O The Side poem – Andrew Lang poems
- The Declaration of London by Rudyard Kipling
- Above The Oxbow by Sylvia Plath
- Николай Рубцов – Возвращение из рейса
- New Land
- Tis Time, I Think, By Wenlock Town poem – A. E. Housman
- Mending Socks by Martin Willitts Jr.
- Низами Гянджеви – Когда ты локоны свои распустишь
- The Child an’ the Mowers by William Barnes
- any_man_speaks.html
- O Wondrous Ecstatic Eyes – Chashmay Mastay poem – Amir Khusro poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Hearth Eternal by Vachel Lindsay
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
- Do You Know What It’s Like
- That devil of a man
- Because We Never Practiced With The Escape Chamber poem – Alice Fulton poems | Poetry Monster
- Aplogize
- Alone
- About Face poem – Alice Fulton poems | Poetry Monster
- To the Muse poem – Aleksandr Blok poems | Poetry Monster
- Those Born In Obscure Times poem – Aleksandr Blok poems | Poetry Monster
- Those Born In Obscure Times poem – Aleksandr Blok poems | Poetry Monster
- The Twelve poem – Aleksandr Blok poems | Poetry Monster
- The Stranger poem – Aleksandr Blok poems | Poetry Monster
- The Faithless Shadows. poem – Aleksandr Blok poems | Poetry Monster
- The Death of Grandfather poem – Aleksandr Blok poems | Poetry Monster
- The Snowy Spring Is Raging Mad poem – Aleksandr Blok poems | Poetry Monster
- The Scythians poem – Aleksandr Blok poems | Poetry Monster
- Street Circus poem – Aleksandr Blok poems | Poetry Monster
- The Snowy Spring Is Raging Mad poem – Aleksandr Blok poems | Poetry Monster
- On the Field of Kulicovo poem – Aleksandr Blok poems | Poetry Monster
- I Wait For You… poem – Aleksandr Blok poems | Poetry Monster
- I Prefer the Gorgeous Freedom poem – Aleksandr Blok poems | Poetry Monster
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.