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:
- Николай Гербель – Песнь лейб-гвардии уланского полка
- Night In Arizona by Sara Teasdale
- Владимир Маяковский – Сказка о красной шапочке
- Beginners. by Walt Whitman
- Ballade Of True Wisdom poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Sheppard’s Quest by Shawn Ervin
- Гавриил Державин – К правде
- English Poetry. Madison Julius Cawein. Indifference. Мэдисон Джулиус Кавейн.
- Sonnet 98: From you have I been absent in the spring by William Shakespeare
- But Outer Space by Robert Frost
- Admiration of the Peach and the Light by Miles
- It Will Not Change by Sara Teasdale
- The Flight by Rudyard Kipling
- Николай Языков – Е. А. Тимашевой (Молодая ученица)
- Наум Коржавин – Еж и Заяц
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 Methodist by Thomas Chatterton
- The Death of Nicou by Thomas Chatterton
- The Copernican System by Thomas Chatterton
- The Advice by Thomas Chatterton
- Song from Aella by Thomas Chatterton
- Sly Dick by Thomas Chatterton
- Narva and Mored by Thomas Chatterton
- Heccar and Gaira by Thomas Chatterton
- February by Thomas Chatterton
- Eclogues by Thomas Chatterton
- Colin Instructed by Thomas Chatterton
- An Excelente Balade of Charitie: As Wroten bie the Gode Pri by Thomas Chatterton
- A New Song by Thomas Chatterton
- A Hymn for Christmas Day by Thomas Chatterton
- The Spring by Thomas Carew
- The Primrose by Thomas Carew
- Song. Murdering Beauty by Thomas Carew
- Song. Mediocrity in love rejected. by Thomas Carew
- Song. Good Counsel to a Young Maid by Thomas Carew
- Song: Eternity of Love Protested by Thomas Carew
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.