Prison Song

A poem by Alan Dugan

The skin ripples over my body like moon-wooed water,

rearing to escape me. Where could it find another

animal as naked as the one it hates to cover?

Once it told me what was happening outside,

who was attacking, who caressing, and what the air

was doing to feed or freeze me. Now I wake up

dark at night, in a textureless ocean of ignorance,

or fruit bites back and water bruises like a stone.

It’s jealousy, because I look for other tools to know

with, and other armor, better girded to my wish.

So let it lie, turn off the clues or try to leave:

sewn on me seamless like those painful shirts

the body-hating saints wore, the sheath of hell

is pierced to my darkness nonetheless: what traitors

labor in my face, what hints they smuggle through

its arching guard! But even in the night it jails,

with nothing but its lies and silences to feed upon,

the jail itself can make a scenery, sing prison songs,

and set off fireworks to praise a homemade day.

Poetry Monster – Home

A few random poems:

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 

• La Nue by Alan Seeger
• Kyrenaikos by Alan Seeger
• Juvenilia An Ode To Natural Beauty by Alan Seeger
• I Loved by Alan Seeger
• I Have A Rendezvous With Death by Alan Seeger
• Fragments by Alan Seeger
• Eudaemon by Alan Seeger
• El Extraviado by Alan Seeger
• Do You Remember Once by Alan Seeger
• Coucy by Alan Seeger
• Champagne 1914 15 by Alan Seeger
• Broceliande by Alan Seeger
• Bellinglise by Alan Seeger
• At The Tomb Of Napoleon by Alan Seeger
• Ariosto Orlando Furioso Canto X 91 99 by Alan Seeger
• Antinous by Alan Seeger
• An Ode To Antares by Alan Seeger
• All Thats Not Love by Alan Seeger
• After An Epigram Of Clement Marot by Alan Seeger
• A Message To America by Alan Seeger

More external links (open in a new tab):

Russian Commerce Agency

Dealing Monster

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

Poems by Author and Category

The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works