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:
- Song Of Taj Mahomed
- The Winged Mariners
- The Men Who Wear My Clothes by Vernon Scannell
- A Longing for Silence! by Preeth Nambiar
- Love in Twilight by Stephen Vincent Benet
- Владимир Высоцкий – Оплавляются свечи на старинный паркет
- Water Strider
- Sonnet LIII by William Shakespeare
- Robert Burns: Epitaph For William Nicol, Of The High School, Edinburgh:
- Robert Burns: The Lover’s Morning Salute To His Mistress:
- Николай Заболоцкий – Сказка о кривом человечке
- Bring Us The Light by John Oxenham
- On The Plethora Of Dryads by Sylvia Plath
- Альфред де Мюссе – Ива (Как придется мне покинуть свет)
- Sonnet 104: To me, fair friend, you never can be old by William Shakespeare
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
- SOMALIA CALLING by Satish Verma
- Solitudes by Satish Verma
- SNAKE CHARMING by Satish Verma
- Smiling Buddha by Satish Verma
- Singing Darkness by Satish Verma
- Sin and Prayer by Satish Verma
- Silver Trails by Satish Verma
- Sidelined by Satish Verma
- Shimmering by Satish Verma
- SELF-WATCH by Satish Verma
- Searing Heat by Satish Verma
- SCULPTURING by Satish Verma
- SCARY DANCE by Satish Verma
- REVOLT OF A SUTRA by Satish Verma
- REGENERATING by Satish Verma
- REFLECTING THE PRAISES by Satish Verma
- PURE STEEL by Satish Verma
- PROGNOSIS by Satish Verma
- PRESCIENCE by Satish Verma
- Praying Hurriedly by Satish Verma
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.