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:
- Огюст Барбье – Леонардо да Винчи
- The Hermit At Outermost House by Sylvia Plath
- The Workbox by Thomas Hardy
- O aye my wife she dang me (Song) by Robert Burns
- Is Resume Writing Really That Important?
- The Harbour by Winifred Mary Letts
- The Rose Of Battle by William Butler Yeats
- On The Eating Of Mice by Russell Edson
- politeness.html
- June by William Cullen Bryant
- An Interchanging Poetry Expression Of Love by Mac McGovern
- Evenèn Light by William Barnes
- Raw Silk by Vinita Agrawal
- Middlesex poem – John Betjeman poems
- I Strove with None by Walter Savage Landor
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
- How I Walked Alone in the Jungles of Heaven by Vachel Lindsay
- How a Little Girl Sang by Vachel Lindsay
- How a Little Girl Danced by Vachel Lindsay
- Honor Among Scamps by Vachel Lindsay
- Here’s to the Mice! by Vachel Lindsay
- Heart of God by Vachel Lindsay
- Genesis by Vachel Lindsay
- General William Booth Enters into Heaven by Vachel Lindsay
- Galahad, Knight Who Perished by Vachel Lindsay
- Foreign Missions in Battle Array by Vachel Lindsay
- Factory Windows are Always Broken by Vachel Lindsay
- Euclid by Vachel Lindsay
- Epitaphs For Two Players by Vachel Lindsay
- Epilogue by Vachel Lindsay
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning by Vachel Lindsay
- Eden in Winter by Vachel Lindsay
- Drying Their Wings by Vachel Lindsay
- Darling Daughter of Babylon by Vachel Lindsay
- Concerning Emperors by Vachel Lindsay
- Caught in a Net 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.