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:
- Epitaph by Samuel Coleridge
- Михаил Кузмин – Выздоравливающей
- Adam: A Sacred Drama. Act 3. by William Cowper
- To Delia by William Cowper
- America, America by Saadi Youssef
- How Does Writing Improves Your Mental Health?
- pissed-off cow by Raj Arumugam
- Валерий Брюсов – И. Туманьяну надпись на книге (Да будет праведно возмездие)
- It was a Lover and his Lass by William Shakespeare
- Алишер Навои – Нет, не от слез кровавых одежда моя красней
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Новогоднее видение
- Юрий Галансков – Человеческий манифест
- Низами Гянджеви – Искендер-наме – Страница 7 из 15
- Николай Огарев – Осеннее чувство
- Letter To A Purist by Sylvia Plath
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
- Chronicle
- Change
- Beauty
- Bathing River
- Bathing In The River
- Answer Copy Verses Sent Me Jersey
- Anacreontics The Swallow
- Anacreontics The Epicure
- Anacreontics Drinking
- An Answer To A Copy Of Verses Sent Me To Jersey
- Against Hope
- Against Fruition
- Summer Moon
- Stars
- Love Is Just Like The Rain
- Boy Running In The Rain
- Xai Kou From Book Seeds Of Faith
- Xai Kou1
- Xai Kou0
- Xai Kou
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.