A poem by Alan Dugan
He smelled bad and was red-eyed with the miseries
of being scared while sleepless when he said
this: “I want a private woman, peace and quiet,
and some green stuff in my pocket. Fuck
the rest.” Pity the underwear and socks,
long burnt, of an accomplished murderer,
oh God, of germans and replacements, who
refused three stripes to keep his B.A.R.,
who fought, fought not to fight some days
like any good small businessman of war,
and dug more holes than an outside dog
to modify some Freudian’s thesis: “No
man can stand three hundred days
of fear of mutilation and death.” What he
theorized was a joke: “To keep a tight
asshole, dry socks and a you-deep hole
with you at all times.” Afterwards,
met in a sports shirt with a round wife, he was
the clean slave of a daughter, a power brake
and beer. To me, he seemed diminished
in his dream, or else enlarged, who knows?,
by its accomplishment: personal life
wrung from mass issues in a bloody time
and lived out hiddenly. Aside from sound
baseball talk, his only interesting remark
was, in pointing to his wife’s belly, “If
he comes out left foot first” (the way
you Forward March!), “I am going to stuff
him back up.” “Isn’t he awful?” she said.
A few random poems:
- Анатолий Жигулин – Кладбище в Заполярье
- The Next Chance
- Джон Донн – Лекция о тени
- Олег Григорьев – Участковый стал в двери стучать
- The Lady’s Third Song by William Butler Yeats
- Bright Star, Would I Were Steadfast As Thou Art poem – John Keats poems
- The Gardener LVII: I Plucked Your Flower by Rabindranath Tagore
- If Truth in Hearts That Perish poem – A. E. Housman
- In Defense poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- Monday by Vishü Rita Krocha
- Федор Сологуб – В иных веках, в иной отчизне
- The Temple poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Владимир Маяковский – Октябрь 1917–1926
- The Tent poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- Ольга Седакова – Музыка
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
- Asparagus – A Tanka Poem
- Missile – A Tanka Poem
- The Language of William Dunbar
- A Ballad of Our Lady (Ave Maria, gracia plena)
- A Quick Ode to Spam, a Poem about Spam
- The Amendis to the Telyouris and Sowtaris for the Turnament maid on thame
- Ode to the Bat , a Sonnet
- Love’s Wisdom poem – Alfred Austin
- Love’s Fitfulness poem – Alfred Austin
- Love Of Life poem – Alfred Austin
- Love Of Life poem – Alfred Austin
- Lost poem – Alfred Austin
- Lines Written On Visiting The Chateaux On The Loire poem – Alfred Austin
- Let The Weary World Go Round poem – Alfred Austin
- Leszko The Bastard poem – Alfred Austin
- Is Life Worth Living? poem – Alfred Austin
- Inflexible As Fate poem – Alfred Austin
- In The Month When Sings The Cuckoo poem – Alfred Austin
- In The Forum poem – Alfred Austin
- In Sutton Woods poem – Alfred Austin
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.