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:
- Юнна Мориц – Попрыгать-поиграть
- Sonnet 45: The other two, slight air and purging fire by William Shakespeare
- Алишер Навои – О, мне бы крылья
- Early Spring by Rainer Maria Rilke
- Sonnet IV: Unthrifty Loveliness, Why Dost Thou Spend by William Shakespeare
- An Autumn Homily poem – Alfred Austin
- Николай Заболоцкий – Бегство в Египет
- Come Into The Garden, Maud poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Life Brings Me to this Journey. by Stephen Sweitzer
- A Ballad That We Do Not Perish poem – Zbigniew Herbert poems | Poetry Monster
- Владимир Маяковский – Дурацкий сон (РОСТА №234)
- Иван Варавва – Выйду в степь, на поля плодородные
- Promise Me Rain Retold by Roberto Cocina
- Владимир Луговской – Спасибо
- Granny
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
- On The Tomb Of A Priestess Of Artemis by Sappho
- To One who Loved not Poetry by Sappho
- To One False In Love by Sappho
- To Aphrodite by Sappho
- To A Girl In A Garden by Sappho
- Before They Were Mothers by Sappho
- The Torments Of Love by Sappho
- The Silver Moon by Sappho
- The Death Of Adonis by Sappho
- Like The Sweet Apple by Sappho
- In the spring twilight by Sappho
- The Silver Moon by Sappho
- Sappho To Her Girlfriends by Sappho
- To One who Loved not Poetry by Sappho
- On The Tomb Of A Priestess Of Artemis by Sappho
- Of course I love you by Sappho
- Ode To A Loved One by Sappho
- My Garden by Sappho
- Mother, I Cannot Mind My Wheel by Sappho
- Loneliness by Sappho
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.