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:
- Death of the Bird
- Not Heat Flames up and Consumes. by Walt Whitman
- Dublinesque by Philip Larkin
- Илья Эренбург – Я знаю, будет золотой и долгий
- Николай Рубцов – Весна на берегу Бии
- A Conceited Mistake by Vasko Popa
- Second Epistle to Robert Graham, Esq., of Fintry by Robert Burns
- Late Autumn by William Allingham
- Reply to an Announcement by J. Rankine by Robert Burns
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Пещеры Кизиль-коба
- Жан де Лафонтен – Львиный указ
- As Adam, Early in the Morning. by Walt Whitman
- Lead Soldiers poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Only If I Know by Rifat Ilgaz
- Paris
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 Drinking Song by William Butler Yeats
- A Dream Of Death by William Butler Yeats
- A Dialogue Of Self And Soul by William Butler Yeats
- A Deep Sworn Vow by William Butler Yeats
- A Crazed Girl by William Butler Yeats
- A Cradle Song by William Butler Yeats
- A Coat by William Butler Yeats
- A Bronze Head by William Butler Yeats
- He Reproves The Curlew by William Butler Yeats
- He Remembers Forgotten Beauty by William Butler Yeats
- He Hears The Cry Of The Sedge by William Butler Yeats
- He Gives His Beloved Certain Rhymes by William Butler Yeats
- He Bids His Beloved Be At Peace by William Butler Yeats
- Gratitude To The Unknown Instructors by William Butler Yeats
- Girl’s Song by William Butler Yeats
- From The ‘Antigone’ by William Butler Yeats
- Fragments by William Butler Yeats
- For Anne Gregory by William Butler Yeats
- Fergus And The Druid by William Butler Yeats
- Father And Child by William Butler Yeats
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.