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:
- How Do You Know when Someone is in Love with You?
- My Highland Lassie, O by Robert Burns
- Владимир Высоцкий – Нынче мне не до улыбок
- Виктор Шамонин-Версенев – Весёлый воробей
- The Song Of The Kasak poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Валерий Брюсов – После смерти Ленина
- the branches of pine tree by Mousumi Guha Roy
- Олег Чупров – В лесу просторно, тихо, ясно
- After Reading a Child’s Guide to Modern Physics by W. H. Auden
- Василий Казин – Кирилл и Мефодий
- Ambrose Bierce – Ambrose Bierce Poems | Poems and Poetry
- Imitation poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Lorelei by Sylvia Plath
- The Pet-Lamb by William Wordsworth
- Sonnet Of Motherhood XXVII poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
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
- Orpheus with his Lute Made Trees by William Shakespeare
- Orpheus by William Shakespeare
- Not marble nor the guilded monuments (Sonnet 55) by William Shakespeare
- Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck (Sonnet 14) by William Shakespeare
- Love by William Shakespeare
- It was a Lover and his Lass by William Shakespeare
- Hark! Hark! The Lark by William Shakespeare
- From you have I been absent in the spring… (Sonnet 98) by William Shakespeare
- from Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare
- Fidele by William Shakespeare
- Fear No More by William Shakespeare
- Fairy Land v by William Shakespeare
- Fairy Land iv by William Shakespeare
- Fairy Land iii by William Shakespeare
- Fairy Land ii by William Shakespeare
- Dirge of the Three Queens by William Shakespeare
- Dirge by William Shakespeare
- Carpe Diem by William Shakespeare
- Bridal Song by William Shakespeare
- Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind by William Shakespeare
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.