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:
- Владимир Маяковский – Ров (РОСТА №181)
- Михаил Лермонтов – Я видел тень блаженства
- Before it is Time by Minal Sarosh
- Robert Burns: Song Inscribed To Alexander Cunningham:
- The One Night Stand : An Approach to the Bridge by Paul Blackburn
- Valediction Forbidding Mourning
- an evening’s music by Raj Arumugam
- Владимир Маяковский – Сказка для шахтера-друга про шахтерки, чуни и каменный уголь
- Portals. by Walt Whitman
- Жан де Лафонтен – Ссора Собак с Кошками и Кошек с Мышами
- Robert Burns: The Deuks Dang O’er My Daddie:
- Crowdie ever mair (Song) by Robert Burns
- To Virgil, Written at the Request of the Mantuans for the N poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Fabliau Of Florida by Wallace Stevens
- Олег Григорьев – Яма
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 Eclipsed Past by Tholana Ashok Chakravarthy
- The Call of the Crows by Tanmoy
- The Blind Man by Théophile Gautier
- The Beautiful Heartbreak by Talha Jafri
- Snow Flakes by Tala Bar
- Selecting A Reader by Ted Kooser
- Seasons by Tala Bar
- Ritual by Tala Bar
- Passion of Greatness by Terence Ray Robertson
- On The Move ‘Man, You Gotta Go. by Thom Gunn
- My Sad Captains by Thom Gunn
- Meeting at an Airport by Taha Muhammad Ali
- Lucid Dreams by Talha Jafri
- Love In Reverse by Talha Jafri
- Love Equals Insanity by Talha Jafri
- Light by Tala Bar
- Last Poem by Ted Berrigan
- In January by Ted Kooser
- I Want It Now by Roald Dahl
- Exodus by Taha Muhammad Ali
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.