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 Song of the Dead by Rudyard Kipling
- Олег Бундур – Для чего бывает день
- Cavalier Tunes: Give a Rouse by Robert Browning
- Idylls of the King: The Marriage of Geraint poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Off Mesolongi poem – Alfred Austin
- Compromising my ego by Tanisha Avarsekar
- It was you, Atthis, who said by Sappho
- The Passing Of The Century poem – Alfred Austin
- The Flowers poem – Aldous Huxley poems | Poetry Monster
- Федор Сологуб – В мантии серой
- An Opera House poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Михаил Лермонтов – Хаджи Абрек
- Tony Harrison – Tony Harrison
- Николай Заболоцкий – Старая актриса
- In Memoriam 82: I Wage Not Any Feud With Death poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
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
- Meg Merrilies poem – John Keats poems
- Lines On The Mermaid Tavern poem – John Keats poems
- Lines from Endymion poem – John Keats poems
- Lines poem – John Keats poems
- Last Sonnet poem – John Keats poems
- La Belle Dame Sans Merci poem – John Keats poems
- Keen, Fitful Gusts are Whisp’ring Here and There poem – John Keats poems
- Isabella or The Pot of Basil poem – John Keats poems
- John Keats – John Keats Poems
- In Drear-Nighted December poem – John Keats poems
- If By Dull Rhymes Our English Must Be Chain’d poem – John Keats poems
- Hyperion poem – John Keats poems
- Hymn To Apollo poem – John Keats poems
- How Many Bards Gild The Lapses Of Time! poem – John Keats poems
- Hither, Hither, Love poem – John Keats poems
- His Last Sonnet poem – John Keats poems
- Happy Is England! I Could Be Content poem – John Keats poems
- Give Me Women, Wine, and Snuff poem – John Keats poems
- Fragment of an Ode to Maia poem – John Keats poems
- Fill For Me A Brimming Bowl poem – John Keats poems
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.