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:
- Юнна Мориц – Приход вдохновения
- A Pleäce In Zight by William Barnes
- Жан де Лафонтен – Обезьяна и Дельфин
- Robert Burns: On A Noisy Polemic:
- Alone
- Cruel Kindness by Rabindranath Tagore
- Robert Burns: The Bonie Lad That’s Far Awa:
- Comments: How to Write a Critical Appreciation of a Poem
- Why do ye torture me? by Patrick Pearse
- Self-Portrait poem – Andrei Voznesensky poems
- A Dogs Love Is a Never Ending Game by Stacey Chillemi
- My Mother On An Evening In Late Summer by Mark Strand
- Buddies by Richard Schiffman
- Alone by Walter de la Mare
- The Crazed Moon by William Butler Yeats
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
- What the Sexton Said by Vachel Lindsay
- What the Rattlesnake Said by Vachel Lindsay
- What the Moon Saw by Vachel Lindsay
- What the Miner in the Desert Said by Vachel Lindsay
- What the Gray-Winged Fairy Said by Vachel Lindsay
- What the Ghost of the Gambler Said by Vachel Lindsay
- What the Coal-Heaver Said by Vachel Lindsay
- What Semiramis Said by Vachel Lindsay
- The Trap by Vachel Lindsay
- The Tale of the Tiger-Tree by Vachel Lindsay
- The Spider and the Ghost of the Fly by Vachel Lindsay
- The Soul of the City Receives the Gift of the Holy Spirit by Vachel Lindsay
- The Song of the Garden-Toad by Vachel Lindsay
- The Scissors-Grinder by Vachel Lindsay
- The Rose of Midnight by Vachel Lindsay
- The Raft by Vachel Lindsay
- The Proud Farmer by Vachel Lindsay
- The Prarie Battlements by Vachel Lindsay
- The Perfect Marriage by Vachel Lindsay
- The Mysterious Cat by Vachel Lindsay
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.