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.
A few random poems:
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning by Vachel Lindsay
- The Wish poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Translated from Geibel poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Od’d(ode) to Whitey Bulger by Susan King Saunders
- Out A-Nuttèn by William Barnes
- Степан Щипачев – Шар земной
- The Alchemist’s Petition by Vachel Lindsay
- Peace by William Butler Yeats
- Илья Зданевич – Ослиный Бох
- Bag-Snatching In Dublin by Stevie Smith
- Freedom And Love by Thomas Campbell
- A Song From ‘The Player Queen’ by William Butler Yeats
- The Character Of Holland poem – Andrew Marvell poems
- A Souless Singer poem – Alfred Austin
- Last Turn Of The Morning Carousel/Forever Turn The Midnight Carousel by Matthew Abuelo
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
- Recollection
- Practising The Anthem
- Practising Anthem
- Peace
- On Australian Hills
- Mirage
- Memoriam
- Mates
- Lord Nevils Advice
- Lord Nevil039s Advice
- Looking In The Fire
- Looking Fire
- Learn
- Last Battle Cid
- Influence
- Individuality
- In Memoriam
- Honour
- Home Sick
- Holy Communion
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.