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 

• Infelix by Adah Isaacs Menken
• Hemlock Furrows by Adah Isaacs Menken
• Genius by Adah Isaacs Menken
• Fragment by Adah Isaacs Menken
• Dying by Adah Isaacs Menken
• Dreams Beauty by Adah Isaacs Menken
• Depths by Adah Isaacs Menken
• Battle Stars by Adah Isaacs Menken
• Aspiration by Adah Isaacs Menken
• Answer Me by Adah Isaacs Menken
• Adelina Patti by Adah Isaacs Menken
• The Nuclear Ghost Towns by Poetry In English
• The Conditional by Poetry In English
• The Ugly Little Bird by Poetry In English
• Not A Star by Poetry In English
• Mountain Wellhead by Poetry In English
• Lightning In The Dark Night Skies by Poetry In English
• In The Bus That Is Frantically Rushing From Cairo To Port Said by Poetry In English
• Immoral Laboratories by Poetry In English
• Hope by Poetry In English

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