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:
- In Memory of a Child by Vachel Lindsay
- Complaint by William Carlos Williams
- Blind by Siegfried Sassoon
- The Hawk and the Babe poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- Composed By The Sea-Side, Near Calais, August 1802 by William Wordsworth
- Альфред Теннисон – Леди Клара Вер-де-Вер
- Composition by Peter Cooley
- Heedless O’ My Love by William Barnes
- After A Journey by Thomas Hardy
- Олег Бундур – Вместо нас
- The Uses of the Eye by Paul Blackburn
- In A Station Of The Metro poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Twas’ the Night Before Christmas and Santa got Drunk by Margaret Marie Hubbard
- The ME inside by Muralidharan Mudaliar
- Arabian Night’s Entertainments by William Ernest Henley
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 Rowing Song by Roald Dahl
- The Crocodile by Roald Dahl
- St Ives by Roald Dahl
- Violet Beauregarde… by Roald Dahl
- “Veruca Salt…” by Roald Dahl
- My teacher wasn’t half as nice as yours seems to be by Roald Dahl
- “Mike Teavee…” by Roald Dahl
- Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf by Roald Dahl
- I’ve Got a Golden Ticket by Roald Dahl
- I had a little nut-tree, by Roald Dahl
- Hot and Cold by Roald Dahl
- “Goldie Pinklesweet…” by Roald Dahl
- Excerpt – “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” by Roald Dahl
- Augustus Gloop… by Roald Dahl
- Of Myself – the Essay and Poems on Myself by Abraham Cowley
- Poets
- On the Danger of Procrastination by Abraham Cowley
- ON THE SHORTNESS OF LIFE AND UNCERTAINTY OF RICHES by Abraham Cowley
- CLAUDIAN’S OLD MAN OF VERONA by Abraham Cowley
- THE DANGERS OF AN HONEST MAN IN MUCH COMPANY by Abraham Cowley
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.