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:
- Василий Жуковский – Бедный певец
- Sunt Leones by Stevie Smith
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Слезы и звуки
- Passing Time by Maya Angelou
- Владимир Маяковский – Два Берлина
- Федор Сологуб – Скупа Филис, но пыл мятежный
- Владимир Корнилов – Спортлото
- Rains Have Come poem – Amir Khusro poems | Poems and Poetry
- Hymn To Apollo poem – John Keats poems
- Владимир Маяковский – Тексты для издательства “Сегодняшний лубок” (Плакаты)
- Poem
- Behavior. by Walt Whitman
- To Sr Henry Vane The Younger poem – John Milton poems
- Николай Заболоцкий – Вечерний бар
- Sonnet 12
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 Buried Train by Robert Bly
- The Defunct Drugstore by Robert Lloyd Jaffe
- The Apple Trees at Olema by Robert Hass
- Snowbanks North of the House by Robert Bly
- Sleep Spaces by Robert Desnos
- Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow by Robert Duncan
- No, Love Is Not Dead by Robert Desnos
- Need by Robert Lloyd Jaffe
- My Mother Would Be a Falconress by Robert Duncan
- Misery And Splendor by Robert Hass
- Lying Down by Robert Desnos
- Long Long Ago by Robert Desnos
- Iowa City: Early April by Robert Hass
- Interrupted Meditation by Robert Hass
- If You Only Knew by Robert Desnos
- Identity of Images by Robert Desnos
- I Have Dreamed of You so Much by Robert Desnos
- Heroic Simile by Robert Hass
- Fairy Tale by Robert Desnos
- Dove in the Arch by Robert Desnos
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.