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:
- Reverie Zahir U Din
- Владимир Маяковский – В России голод… (Главполитпросвет № 236)
- Book Eleventh: France [concluded] by William Wordsworth
- Paradise Lost: Book 12 poem – John Milton poems
- Firesong by Sylvia Plath
- The Great Palaces Of Versailles by Rita Dove
- My Lady’s Law by Rudyard Kipling
- A Pleäce In Zight by William Barnes
- Владимир Высоцкий – Палач
- Song—Address to the Woodlark by Robert Burns
- As a Beam O’er the Face of the Waters May Glow by Thomas Moore
- The Hollow Men by T. S. Eliot
- TURNING GRAY by Satish Verma
- Song by Thomas Carew
- The Source by Rabindranath Tagore
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
- To His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor by Phillis Wheatley
- To Captain H—–d, of the 65th Regiment by Phillis Wheatley
- To A Lady On The Death Of The Three Relations by Phillis Wheatley
- To A Lady On The Death Of Her Husband by Phillis Wheatley
- To a Lady on Her Remarkable Preservation by Phillis Wheatley
- To a Lady on Her Coming to North-America by Phillis Wheatley
- To a Lady and Her Children by Phillis Wheatley
- To a Gentleman on His Voyage to Great-Britain by Phillis Wheatley
- To a Gentleman and Lady on the Death of the Lady’s Brother and Sister by Phillis Wheatley
- To A Clergyman On The Death Of His Lady by Phillis Wheatley
- Thoughts On The Works Of Providence by Phillis Wheatley
- One Being Brought From Africa To America by Phillis Wheatley
- On Virtue by Phillis Wheatley
- On the Death of the Rev. Dr. Sewell by Phillis Wheatley
- On The Death Of Rev. Mr. George Whitefield by Phillis Wheatley
- On The Death Of J. C. An Infant by Phillis Wheatley
- On The Death Of Dr. Samuel Marshall by Phillis Wheatley
- On The Death Of A Young Lady Of Five Years Of Age by Phillis Wheatley
- On the Death of a Young Gentleman by Phillis Wheatley
- On Recollection by Phillis Wheatley
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.