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:
- Spring Rain by Sara Teasdale
- Ольга Берггольц – О, где ты запела
- In The Event Of My Demise by Tupac Shakur
- Words by Sylvia Plath
- Sonnet CXI: O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide by William Shakespeare
- Woman by Tala Bar
- Kiss Me Again by St Antoine de la Vuadi
- It Is No Spirit Who From Heaven Hath Flown by William Wordsworth
- Алексей Жемчужников – Сословные речи
- A Light Woman by Robert Browning
- Avenging and Bright by Thomas Moore
- The Judges Of The Little Box by Vasko Popa
- Омар Хайям – Душой ты безбожник с Писаньем в руке
- A Pity, We Were Such A Good Invention by Yehuda Amichai
- Robert Burns: The Book-Worms:
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
- Conviction (iii) by Stevie Smith
- Conviction (ii) by Stevie Smith
- Conviction (i) by Stevie Smith
- Bag-Snatching In Dublin by Stevie Smith
- Away, Melancholy by Stevie Smith
- Autumn by Stevie Smith
- Alone In The Woods by Stevie Smith
- The Triangle by Subhash Misra
- The Last Summer by Subhash Misra
- The Grammar Lesson by Steve Kowit
- The dawn by Sukumaran Devarajan
- Some Clouds by Steve Kowit
- Scribbles by Suchi Gaur
- Rainbow Hues by Suchi Gaur
- Purple Heart Liz (My Girl At Woodstock) by Steve Sant
- Notice by Steve Kowit
- Must Work by Steve Downes
- Lifetime Of Death by Steve Sant
- In The Chapel Of Rest by Steve Sant
- I Had To Leave by Subhash Misra
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.