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:
- Robert Burns: She’s Fair And Fause:
- Mary Morison by Robert Burns
- Epitaph on the same by Robert Burns
- Orlando Furioso Canto 18 by Ludovico Ariosto
- Robert Burns: Written By Somebody On The Window Of an Inn at Stirling, on seeing the Royal Palace in ruin.: Of an Inn at Stirling, on seeing the Royal Palace in ruin.
- What the Rattlesnake Said by Vachel Lindsay
- The Bride
- The Window
- The Home by Rabindranath Tagore
- Channel Crossing by Sylvia Plath
- Sonnet 2: When forty winters shall besiege thy brow by William Shakespeare
- To His Worthy Friend Doctor Witty Upon His Translation Of The Popular Errors poem – Andrew Marvell poems
- Boadicea poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Алишер Навои – Поучительные заветы старости
- That devil of a man
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 Great Palaces Of Versailles by Rita Dove
- Teach Us To Number Our Days by Rita Dove
- Primer by Rita Dove
- Persephone, Falling by Rita Dove
- Mushrooms by Rina Ferrarelli
- Ludwig Von Beethoven’s Return To Vienna by Rita Dove
- Lines Composed on the Body Politic by Rita Dove
- Lady Freedom Among Us by Rita Dove
- I hear the roar of a Harley… by River Urke
- Heart To Heart by Rita Dove
- Hades’ Pitch by Rita Dove
- Fifth Grade Autobiography by Rita Dove
- Exit by Rita Dove
- Dawn Revisited by Rita Dove
- Chocolate by Rita Dove
- Cavern in Paradise by Rita Odessa Villaruel
- Broccoli by Rina Ferrarelli
- Birth Of A Flower by Riss Ryker
- American Smooth by Rita Dove
- Amarene by Rina Ferrarelli
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.