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:
- There is but there is not poem – Amy Haritha Suseel poems | Poems and Poetry
- Robert Burns: News, Lassies, News:
- Виктор Кирюшин – Небеса набухшей парусиною
- In Memoriam A. H. H. Obiit MDCCCXXXIII: 3. O Sorrow, cruel poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- My Picture-Gallery. by Walt Whitman
- Under The Blue Skies… poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Crow’s Fall by Ted Hughes
- Юрий Котов – Ты что-же боль, меня не отпускаешь
- Омар Хайям – Чем пустыми мечтами себя донимать
- Жан де Лафонтен – Предостережение богов Симониду
- Гавриил Державин – На возвращение графа Зубова из Персии
- Spring Thing by Paul Blackburn
- Forgotten Promises by Rixa White
- Олег Григорьев – Иду я среди голодный
- Владимир Корнилов – Игра судьбы
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
- Fault by Sara Teasdale
- Enough by Sara Teasdale
- Dust by Sara Teasdale
- Doubt by Sara Teasdale
- Did You Never Know? by Sara Teasdale
- Debt by Sara Teasdale
- Come by Sara Teasdale
- But Not To Me by Sara Teasdale
- Buried Love by Sara Teasdale
- Blue Squills by Sara Teasdale
- Because by Sara Teasdale
- Barter by Sara Teasdale
- At Midnight by Sara Teasdale
- Alone by Sara Teasdale
- After Parting by Sara Teasdale
- After Love by Sara Teasdale
- A November Night by Sara Teasdale
- A Cry by Sara Teasdale
- To Youth by Sarojini Naidu
- The Soul’s Prayer by Sarojini Naidu
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.