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 Глазков – Движутся телеги и калеки
- Ghost Girl by P.J.Reed
- Алишер Навои – Двух резвых своих газелей, которые нежно спят
- Old People’s Home by W H Auden
- An Autumn Reverie by William Topaz McGonagall
- Genesis by Vachel Lindsay
- In the Carpenter’s Shop by Sara Teasdale
- Ольга Седакова – Сказка
- Алексей Николаевич Толстой – Колыбельная
- Lines By Taj Mahomed
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Маша
- The Hawk and the Babe poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- Владимир Корнилов – В прачечной
- Юлия Друнина – Все грущу о шинели
- English Poetry. Philip James Bailey. Festus – 34. Филип Джеймс Бэйли.
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
- Refrigerator, 1957 by Thomas Lux
- Red Planet Haiku by Thomas J Camp
- Plague Victims Catapulted Over Walls Into Besieged City by Thomas Lux
- On The Death Of A Favourite Cat, Drowned In A Tub Of Gold Fishes by Thomas Gray
- Ode On The Spring by Thomas Gray
- Ode On The Pleasure Arising From Vicissitude by Thomas Gray
- Ode On A Distant Prospect Of Eton College by Thomas Gray
- My Country Place by Thomas J Camp
- Motel Seedy by Thomas Lux
- Monsters under the bed by Thomas J Camp
- Marine Snow At Mid-Depths And Down by Thomas Lux
- Lucky by Thomas Lux
- Thomas Gray – Thomas Gray
- Hymn To Adversity by Thomas Gray
- Henry Clay’s Mouth by Thomas Lux
- He Has Lived In Many Houses by Thomas Lux
- Gorgeous Surfaces by Thomas Lux
- Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray
- Drummer Boy by Thomas J Camp
- Becalmed and Bewildered by Thomas J Camp
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.