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:
- Владимир Маяковский – Дядя ЭМЭСПЭО
- Владимир Британишский – По волхову
- Аля Кудряшева – Трилогия перед годом (Цепочка ассоциаций)
- Юлия Друнина – Ты должна
- To England At The Outbreak Of The Balkan War
- Epitaph On An Army of Mercenaries poem – A. E. Housman
- Says. by Walt Whitman
- Written in March by William Wordsworth
- Meditation With Feet
- Social Amenities poem – Aldous Huxley poems | Poetry Monster
- What think You I take my Pen in Hand? by Walt Whitman
- The Legatee poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- I Write a Poem by Aiyah De Torres
- Владимир Маяковский – Дачный случай
- Sappho Redivivus: A Fragment by Robert Burns
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
- Николай Гумилев – Ночь
- Николай Гумилев – Никогда не сделаю я так
- Николай Гумилев – Неоромантическая сказка
- Николай Гумилев – Неизгладимы, нет, в моей судьбе
- Николай Гумилев – На Дуксе ли, на Бенце ль я
- Николай Гумилев – На далекой звезде Венере
- Николай Гумилев – На берегу моря
- Николай Гумилев – Мужик
- Николай Гумилев – Моя мечта летит к далекому Парижу
- Николай Гумилев – Мореплаватель Павзаний
- Николай Гумилев – Молитва мастеров
- Николай Гумилев – Маскарад
- Николай Гумилев – Маргарита
- Николай Гумилев – Маэстро
- Николай Гумилев – Мадагаскар
- Николай Гумилев – Людям будущего
- Николай Гумилев – Любовь весной
- Николай Гумилев – Луна на море
- Николай Гумилев – Лиловый цветок
- Николай Гумилев – Левин, Левин, ты суров
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.