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:
- A Desolate Shore by William Ernest Henley
- Autumn Leaves by Thomas J Camp
- Pied Beauty poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Singing Darkness by Satish Verma
- O fortunatus nimium, etc., a translation out of Virgil by Abraham Cowley
- Владимир Британишский – Переписка
- Epigram—Thanks for a National Victory by Robert Burns
- Николай Заболоцкий – Человек в воде
- Memoriam A. H. H.: 44. How fares it with the happy dead? poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Beautiful City poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Владимир Маяковский – Неделя фронта (РОСТА)
- When the Lad for Longing Sigh poem – A. E. Housman
- Stars Over The Dordogne by Sylvia Plath
- The Lake Isle Of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats
- A beach dawn by Sunil Sharma
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
- Some Clouds by Steve Kowit
- Resolute by Stephenie Tucker
- Purple Heart Liz (My Girl At Woodstock) by Steve Sant
- Numb by Stephenie Tucker
- Notice by Steve Kowit
- Must Work by Steve Downes
- Lifetime Of Death by Steve Sant
- In The Chapel Of Rest by Steve Sant
- A Warrior’s Truth by Stephenie Tucker
- A Soldier’s Song by Stephenie Tucker
- YOU ARE CHRISTMAS EVERYDAY by Steve Troyanovich
- tomorrow is already past… by Steve Troyanovich
- still the leaves fall… and dream by Steve Troyanovich
- softly… in wingless dream by Steve Troyanovich
- Snowfall by Steve Troyanovich
- shivering wind by Steve Troyanovich
- NOCTURNAL EMBERS AND LOST LIPS by Steve Troyanovich
- MY BEST PAL by Steve Troyanovich
- forever blue by Steve Troyanovich
- dreams the wind by Steve Troyanovich
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.