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:
- The Withdrawal by Robert Lowell
- Dryads by Siegfried Sassoon
- The War Films by Sir Henry Newbolt
- Beach Glass poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- Василий Тредиаковский – Мое сердце все было в страсти
- “The Girt Woak Tree That’s In the Dell” by William Barnes
- Федор Сологуб – Светлый дом мой всё выше
- A Coat by William Butler Yeats
- A Blockhead poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Sonnet 05 poem – John Milton poems
- About Troy poem – Zbigniew Herbert poems | Poetry Monster
- Николай Языков – Песни (Мы любим шумные пиры)
- Альфред де Мюссе – Люси
- On The Civil War On The East Coast Of The United States Of North America 1860 64
- Sail Away by Rabindranath Tagore
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 Giver by Sara Teasdale
- The Gift by Sara Teasdale
- The Flight by Sara Teasdale
- The Faery Forest by Sara Teasdale
- The Dreams Of My Heart by Sara Teasdale
- The Crystal Gazer by Sara Teasdale
- The Coin by Sara Teasdale
- The Cloud by Sara Teasdale
- The Carpenter’s Son by Sara Teasdale
- The Broken Field by Sara Teasdale
- The Blind by Sara Teasdale
- The Answer by Sara Teasdale
- Spring In War Time by Sara Teasdale
- Soul’s Birth by Sara Teasdale
- A Song To Eleonora Duse In “Francesca da Rimini ” by Sara Teasdale
- Song At Capri by Sara Teasdale
- Since There Is No Escape by Sara Teasdale
- The Return by Sara Teasdale
- Pity by Sara Teasdale
- Pierrot’s Song by Sara Teasdale
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.