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:
- Олег Бундур – Как папа прогуливал школу
- Soliloquy Of The Solipsist by Sylvia Plath
- The Pretense of Gathering Pebbles by the Shore by Syed Kawsar Jamal
- These Are The Clouds by William Butler Yeats
- Singing Darkness by Satish Verma
- Matrimony by Mike Yuan
- Олег Григорьев – Конфеты
- Number 3 on the Docket poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- My Rival by Rudyard Kipling
- Haiku by Robby Charters
- Владимир Набоков – Пускай все горестней и глуше
- Two Years Later by William Butler Yeats
- C’est la nuit aveugle by Martine Morillon-Carreau
- Ay, workman, make me a dream, by Stephen Crane
- The Heart Chirps by Ramesh Anand
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
- Loneliness is a prison by Vladimir Marku
- Little angel by Vladimir Marku
- Let Him In by Vishnu J Mohan
- I Will by Vishü Rita Krocha
- I turn my head by Vladimir Marku
- Her smile by Vladimir Marku
- Happiness by Vishü Rita Krocha
- Friends by Vishü Rita Krocha
- Forget-me-nots by Vishü Rita Krocha
- Evening balcony by Vladimir Marku
- Eve of spring by Vladimir Marku
- Eavesdropping myself by Vladimir Marku
- Desperation by Vishü Rita Krocha
- Demon by Vladimir Marku
- Breather by Vishü Rita Krocha
- Aquarium epoch by Vladimir Marku
- After Midnight by Walid Saba
- Adieu…, adieu…. by Vladimir Marku
- Who’s Who by W H Auden
- We’re Late by W H Auden
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.