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:
- Macer : A Character poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Aquarium epoch by Vladimir Marku
- Низами Гянджеви – О кипарис с плавной поступью мри
- A March in the Ranks, Hard-prest. by Walt Whitman
- Before it is Time by Minal Sarosh
- Олег Сердобольский – Перемена
- From Behind The Lattice
- Николай Гумилев – Маэстро
- Владимир Степанов – Тула-город мастеров
- Robert Burns: To Ruin:
- Love’s Paradox by Vishü Rita Krocha
- Swing Shift Blues
- Robert Burns: Lines To John M’Murdo, Esq. Of Drumlanrig: Sent with some of the Author’s Poems.
- К 8-му марта
- Heel & Toe To The End by William Carlos Williams
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
- A Poet by Thomas Hardy
- A Meeting With Despair by Thomas Hardy
- A Man (In Memory of H. of M.) by Thomas Hardy
- A King’s Soliloquy [On the Night of His Funeral] by Thomas Hardy
- In A Wood by Thomas Hardy
- “I Sometimes Think” by Thomas Hardy
- A Death-Day Recalled by Thomas Hardy
- A Conversation At Dawn by Thomas Hardy
- A Confession To A Friend In Trouble by Thomas Hardy
- A Commonplace Day by Thomas Hardy
- A Circular by Thomas Hardy
- A Christmas Ghost Story by Thomas Hardy
- Amabel by Thomas Hardy
- Ah, Are You Digging On My Grave? by Thomas Hardy
- After The Visit by Thomas Hardy
- After Schiller by Thomas Hardy
- After A Journey by Thomas Hardy
- Additions: The Fire at Tranter Sweatley’s by Thomas Hardy
- “According to the Mighty Working” by Thomas Hardy
- A Wife In London by Thomas Hardy
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.