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:
- Жан де Лафонтен – Дровосек и Меркурий
- Each small gleam was a voice, by Stephen Crane
- I love you by Inganathi Ntantiso
- Новелла Матвеева – Набрела на правильную строчку
- Did Shakespeare write his own plays and poems?
- Harvest Hymn by Sarojini Naidu
- Владимир Маяковский – Бюрократиада
- To Beatrice Stuart–Wortley Ætat poem – Alfred Austin
- What the Captain Said at the Point-to-Point by Siegfried Sassoon
- They Would Love To See Me Dead by Mahmoud Darwish
- Омар Хайям – Ну, допустим, что будет тебе и почет
- Владимир Маяковский – Прощанье
- A Slumber did my Spirit Seal by William Wordsworth
- Number 3 on the Docket poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- What Of The Night
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
- Yasmini
- Yasin Khan
- Written In Cananore
- Wings
- When Love Is Over
- Verses
- Verses Faiz Ulla
- Verse By Taj Mahomed
- Vayu The Wind
- Valgovinds Song In The Spring
- Valgovinds Boat Song
- Unforgotten
- Unanswered
- Two Songs By Sitara Of Kashmir
- To The Unattainable
- To The Unattainable Lament Of Mahomed Akram
- To The Hills
- To M C N
- To Aziz Song Of Mahomed Akram
- Till I Wake
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.