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:
- Владимир Макуров – Бумажный самолёт
- Владимир Высоцкий – Всё было не так, как хотелось вначале
- The White Peacock by Stephen Vincent Benet
- The Dream by Sylvia Plath
- Яков Полонский – Поэт и гражданин, он призван был учить
- Олег Сердобольский – Кузнечик
- Family Caregivers Have Promises to Keep
- Николай Карамзин – Соломонова мудрость, или мысли, выбранные из Экклезиаста
- In Token Of The Love You Gave by Timothy Thomas Fortune
- Fortune-Hunter, The – Canto 3 by William Somervile
- Владимир Маяковский – Тучкины штучки
- Be Prepared by Raj Napal
- Владимир Маяковский – Эй, товарищи, за труд!.. (Главполитпросвет №146)
- Nasrudin’s donkey eats poetry by Raj Arumugam
- Юнна Мориц – Античная картина
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
- Иван Бунин – Не видно птиц
- Иван Бунин – За рекой луга зазеленели
- Иван Бунин – Надпись на могильной плите
- Иван Бунин – Богиня
- Иван Бунин – Безнадежность
- Иван Бунин – Беру твою руку и долго смотрю
- Иван Бунин – Балагула
- Иван Бунин – Апрель
- Иван Бунин – Алёнушка
- Иван Бунин – Пустыня, грусть в степных просторах
- Иван Барков – Выбор
- Иван Барков – Вопрос без ответу
- Иван Барков – Венерино оружие
- Иван Барков – Улика подьячего
- Иван Барков – Торжественным воротам
- Иван Барков – Стихи с матом без цензуры: читать матерные нецензурные стихотворения Баркова – Poetry Monster
- Исикава Такубоку – Дом
- Ирина Токмакова – Каша
- Иосиф Бродский – Бюст Тиберия
- Иосиф Бродский – Буров тракторист
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.