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:
- Альфред де Мюссе – Намуна
- Владимир Маяковский – Пожарные лозунги (1928)
- Andromeda poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Evening by Olivia Lewis
- Untitled #12 by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Goddess by Samuel Stephen Wakdok
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Могила в мансарде
- Boadicea poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Keeping Things Whole by Mark Strand
- The Distress’d Travellers; or, Labour in Vain by William Cowper
- Psalm 82 poem – John Milton poems
- Northern Farmer: New Style poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- The Caucas poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Ce N’est Jamais Le Même Jardin by Martine Morillon-Carreau
- Sonnet 9: Is it for fear to wet a widow’s eye 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
- Mae Marsh, Motion Picture Actress by Vachel Lindsay
- Love and Law by Vachel Lindsay
- Look You, I’ll Go Pray by Vachel Lindsay
- Lincoln by Vachel Lindsay
- King Arthur’s Men Have Come Again by Vachel Lindsay
- Incense by Vachel Lindsay
- In Praise of Songs that Die by Vachel Lindsay
- In Memory of a Child by Vachel Lindsay
- I Went Down into the Desert by Vachel Lindsay
- I Heard Immanuel Singing by Vachel Lindsay
- How Samson Bore Away the Gates of Gaza by Vachel Lindsay
- Rhymes for Gloriana by Vachel Lindsay
- How I Walked Alone in the Jungles of Heaven by Vachel Lindsay
- Queen Mab in the Village by Vachel Lindsay
- How a Little Girl Sang by Vachel Lindsay
- Popcorn, Glass Balls, and Cranberries by Vachel Lindsay
- How a Little Girl Danced by Vachel Lindsay
- What the Coal-Heaver Said by Vachel Lindsay
- Honor Among Scamps by Vachel Lindsay
- On the Building of Springfield by Vachel Lindsay
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.