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:
- On the Same poem – John Milton poems
- tomorrow is already past… by Steve Troyanovich
- I Know From my Bed by Michael Lee Johnson
- Владимир Маяковский – Не только для того, чтоб тебя накормить… (Главполитпросвет №2)
- Ок Мельникова – Не горим, не светим
- Psalm 9 by Mahmoud Darwish
- Yarrow Unvisited by William Wordsworth
- As Dies The Year poem – Alfred Austin
- Владимир Британишский – Письмо
- At The Close Of The Canvass poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- Spring – The First Pastoral ; or Damon poem – Alexander Pope
- Elegy On An Australian Schoolboy poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- Зинаида Александрова – Большая ложка
- Владимир Высоцкий – Набросок песни к к/ф “Вооружён и очень опасен”
- The Exeter Road poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
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
- Dews of Silence by Raju Baruah
- Catching the Rain by Raj Napal
- Blame by Raj Napal
- Better Be by Raj Napal
- Be Prepared by Raj Napal
- An empty photo album by Raj Napal
- Your Dog Dies by Raymond Carver
- Written Manna by Rangam Chiru
- What The Doctor Said by Raymond Carver
- Tyburn by Ramesh Anand
- The Scratch by Raymond Carver
- The Passing Cloud by Rashmi Sreekumar
- The Mountain Crumbles by Rashmi
- The Moon’s Truth (before the war) by Reena Ribalow
- The Heart Chirps by Ramesh Anand
- The Current by Raymond Carver
- The Cobweb by Raymond Carver
- The Best Time Of The Day by Raymond Carver
- Stupid by Raymond Carver
- Still Life by Reena Ribalow
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.