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:
- Cinquain on Love: Touch by Monty Gilmer
- Robert Burns: Epitaph On Wm. Hood, Senr., In Tarbolton:
- Владимир Маяковский – Первый из пяти
- Polyphemus poem – Alfred Austin
- Вера Павлова – Попытка не пытка
- One Inch Tall by Shel Silverstein
- Владимир Маяковский – Богомольное
- Without Ceremony by Thomas Hardy
- The Gallery poem – Andrew Marvell poems
- Thought. by Walt Whitman
- The Return poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Николай Гумилев – Какою музыкой мой слух взволнован
- The Fable of Dryope – Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book 9, [v. 324-393] poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Taylor Swift
- The Squirrel by Todd H. C. Fischer
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
- Нина Воронель – Сиротское
- Нина Воронель – Санкт-Петербург
- Нина Воронель – С моим житьем, поспешным и тряпичным
- Нина Воронель – Природа сама сочиняет стихи
- Нина Воронель – Предчувствие погрома
- Нина Воронель – Попытка отчаяния
- Нина Воронель – Поэты военных лет
- Нина Воронель – Папоротник II
- Нина Воронель – Осенняя симфония
- Нина Воронель – Одержимые
- Нина Воронель – Неровен час
- Нина Воронель – Неделю, как сотню, лучше не трогать
- Нина Воронель – Не слишком ли ты многого
- Нина Воронель – Мудрая стерва природа
- Нина Воронель – Московский день
- Нина Воронель – Мой дед был слепым
- Нина Воронель – Меня пугает власть моя над миром
- Нина Воронель – Маме
- Нина Воронель – Ломбардная баллада
- Нина Воронель – Игарка
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.