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:
- There is a Candle in your Heart by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Владимир Высоцкий – День рождения лейтенанта милиции в ресторане “Берлин”
- The Little Turtle by Vachel Lindsay
- Song—Stay my Charmer by Robert Burns
- Михаил Лермонтов – Чаша жизни
- Coconut by Paul Hostovsky
- Николай Карамзин – Алина
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Л. Е. Ф.
- And the days are not full enough poem – Ezra Pound poems
- The Last Summer by Subhash Misra
- Chaplain To The Forces by Winifred Mary Letts
- The Curse Upon Edward by Thomas Gray
- This I Beg To Have by Luis Estable
- I met a seer by Stephen Crane
- Юлия Жадовская – Я все хочу расслушать
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
- Even if I don’t hear your voice, I know by Vinko Kalinic
- Don’t know the answer by Vinko Kalinic
- Dog’s love by Vinko Kalinić
- Dear Traffic Signal by Vinaya Kumar Hanumanthappa
- Confessions of a Software Engineer by Vinaya Kumar Hanumanthappa
- Black song about a black woman and red wine by Vinko Kalinić
- Birthday party blunder by Vinaya Kumar Hanumanthappa
- Beautiful Stranger by Vinaya Kumar Hanumanthappa
- Ballad about a stinking flower by Vinko Kalinic
- Altar amid the sea by Vinko Kalinic
- Aeneid by Virgil
- Eclogue VIII by Virgil
- Eclogue VI by Virgil
- Eclogue IV by Virgil
- Eclogue III by Virgil
- Eclogue V by Virgil
- Ecologue IX by Virgil
- Ecologue I by Virgil
- Eclogue X by Virgil
- You by Vladimir Mayakovsky
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.