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:
- Sonnet 01
- Song Of The Master And Boatswain by W H Auden
- Song III: It Grew Up Without Heeding by William Morris
- AN INSPIRATIONAL VILLANELLE: by Manish Thakur
- Огюст Барбье – Идол
- Giving Myself Up by Mark Strand
- Desire # 4 by Patricia Fargnoli
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Слезы и звуки
- Winter Apples by Tatiana Gusarova, translated by Fledermaus
- Lines For Winter by Mark Strand
- And The Black Scythe With Its Beak of Ibis by Martine Morillon-Carreau
- Olney Hymn 23: Pleading For And With Youth by William Cowper
- False Intimacy by Vaishnavi Prakash
- The Witching Hour by Norma Martiri
- The Vrost by William Barnes
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
- In Token Of The Love You Gave by Timothy Thomas Fortune
- I shall not be a shame by Torm Gardson
- I Make My bed Of Roses by Timothy Thomas Fortune
- Henry Clay’s Mouth by Thomas Lux
- He Has Lived In Many Houses by Thomas Lux
- Gorgeous Surfaces by Thomas Lux
- Gentle Heart, Indulge Thy Dreaming by Timothy Thomas Fortune
- Death of the Legend by Timileyin Gabriel Olajuwon
- A Little Tooth by Thomas Lux
- A Library Of Skulls by Thomas Lux
- A Lady Aurum by Thriveni Mysore
- A Kiss by Thomas Lux
- “While with fond rapture and amaze” by Tobias Smollett
- Verses On A Young Lady (playing harpsichord, and singing) by Tobias Smollett
- Verses On A Young Lady (playing harpsichord, and singing) by Tobias Smollett
- To Mirth by Tobias Smollett
- To Independence by Tobias Smollett
- “To fix her!-’twere a task as vain” by Tobias Smollett
- The Tears of Scotland by Tobias Smollett
- The Tears of Scotland by Tobias Smollett
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.