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:
- When the Walls Were White by Noele Martin
- Grace Before Song poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Алексей Плещеев – Мною злых и глупых шуток
- The Golden Year! poem – Alfred Austin
- Олег Чупров – Мама
- Joy, Shipmate, Joy! by Walt Whitman
- Verses
- Юлия Друнина – Ты рядом
- Spider by Sylvia Plath
- Despair
- Ellipsis by Shaunna Harper
- Bury Me In My Shades by Shel Silverstein
- Weekend Glory by Maya Angelou
- My Daughter by Preeth Nambiar
- Ribbons & Pearls by Timothy Cole
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
- Bubbles from Eternity by Muralidharan Mudaliar
- Black magic by Mrunmayi Mandan
- Back I Go to My Prison by Ms Tabzeer Yaseen
- Appease by Muralidharan Mudaliar
- St. Roach by Muriel Rukeyser
- The Conjugation of the Paramecium by Muriel Rukeyser
- Whoever Comes From The Earth by Nelly Sachs
- Utopia by Ndue Ukaj
- Tumult by Nicole M Nugent
- Tip tap RAIN by Neelam Sinha
- The Waist of Time by The Waist of Time
- The Shadow of Crows by Ndue Ukaj
- The Red Earth of Kupungarri by Nicole M Nugent
- The man with the blue eye by Neelam Shah
- The Freedom Of Poetry by Ndue Ukaj
- The Emigrant by Ndue Ukaj
- The blanket is same always by Neelam Sinha
- Superficially by Ndue Ukaj
- Sonnet (XII) : O Buddha ! I do wish to follow your golden middle path by Neelam Sinha
- Sonnet (XI) : I know me and I do believe in the causation by Neelam Sinha
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.