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:
- The Boy by William Henry Davies
- The Weather-Beaten Tree by William Barnes
- Олег Григорьев – С длинным батоном под мышкой
- Robert Burns: On Being Shewn A Beautiful Country Seat : Belonging to the same Laird [not quite so wise as Solomon].
- Огюст Барбье – Жертвы
- The Tollund Man by Seamus Heaney
- Олег Григорьев – Участковый стал в двери стучать
- Михаил Кузмин – Утраченного чародейства
- To All and Everything by Vladimir Mayakovsky
- Lines Inscribed under Fergusson’s Portrait by Robert Burns
- La Figlia che Piange by T. S. Eliot
- As a Beam O’er the Face of the Waters May Glow by Thomas Moore
- For Him I Sing. by Walt Whitman
- Владимир Солоухин – В лесу
- Ecologue I by Virgil
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
- Hear the Voice by William Blake
- Introduction to the Songs of Innocence by William Blake
- French Revolution, The (excerpt) by William Blake
- I Saw a Chapel by William Blake
- I Heard an Angel by William Blake
- Broken Love by William Blake
- Eternity by William Blake
- Holy Thursday (Innocence) by William Blake
- Ah! Sun-Flower by William Blake
- A Cradle Song by William Blake
- Earth’s Answer by William Blake
- A Dream by William Blake
- Infant Joy by William Blake
- Evening Star by William Blake
- Auguries Of Innocence by William Blake
- And Did Those Feet In Ancient Time by William Blake
- Infant Sorrow by William Blake
- If It Is True What the Prophets Write by William Blake
- How Sweet I Roam’d by William Blake
- Holy Thursday (Experience) by William Blake
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.