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:
- When Helen Lived by William Butler Yeats
- Огюст Барбье – Корреджо
- Kite by Vattacharja Chandan
- Olney Hymn 53: My Soul Thirsteth For God by William Cowper
- Water Strider
- Владимир Высоцкий – Странные скачки
- Владимир Набоков – Путь
- Little Girl Dancing by Susan King Saunders
- Words Of Advice by Ronald G. Auguste
- Most Precious by R. L. Karlowsky
- One Day In Spring…. by Rabindranath Tagore
- Hey, the Dusty Miller (Song) by Robert Burns
- Иван Бунин – Никогда вы не воскреснете, не встанете
- A New Song to an Old Tune by William Ernest Henley
- On The Eating Of Mice by Russell Edson
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
- Nutting by William Wordsworth
- Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent’s Narrow Room by William Wordsworth
- November 1813 by William Wordsworth
- November, 1806 by William Wordsworth
- My Heart Leaps Up by William Wordsworth
- Mutability by William Wordsworth
- Most Sweet it is by William Wordsworth
- Minstrels by William Wordsworth
- Michael Angelo In Reply To The Passage Upon His Staute Of Sleeping Night by William Wordsworth
- Michael: A Pastoral Poem by William Wordsworth
- Methought I Saw The Footsteps Of A Throne by William Wordsworth
- Memory by William Wordsworth
- Memorials Of A Tour Of Scotland, 1803 VI. Glen-Almain, Or, The Narrow Glen by William Wordsworth
- Memorials Of A Tour In Scotland, by William Wordsworth
- Memorials Of A Tour In Scotland 1814 I. Suggested By A Beautiful Ruin Upon One Of The Islands Of Lo by William Wordsworth
- Memorials Of A Tour In Scotland, 1803 by William Wordsworth
- Memorials Of A Tour In Scotland, 1803 XIV. Fly, Some Kind Haringer, To Grasmere-Dale by William Wordsworth
- Memorials Of A Tour In Scotland, 1803 XII. Yarrow Unvisited by William Wordsworth
- Memorials Of A Tour In Scotland, 1803 XII. Sonnet Composed At —- Castle by William Wordsworth
- Memorials Of A Tour In Scotland, 1803 X. Rob Roy’s Grave by William Wordsworth
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.