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:
- Robert Burns: Raving Winds Around Her Blowing: I composed these verses on Miss Isabella M’Leod of Raza, alluding to her feelings on the death of her sister, and the still more melancholy death of her sister’s husband, the late Earl of Loudoun, who shot himself out of sheer heart-break at some mortifications he suffered, owing to the deranged state of his finances.-R.B., 1971.
- Ballade Of The Dream poem – Andrew Lang poems
- At Applewaite, Near Keswick 1804 by William Wordsworth
- Омар Хайям – Двести лет проживешь, или тысячу лет
- Thought. by Walt Whitman
- Николай Языков – С. П. Шевыреву (Тебе хвала, и честь, и слава)
- In David’s “Child’s Garden Of Verses” by Sara Teasdale
- Николай Некрасов – Возвращение
- Юнна Мориц – Ручеек
- Story Of Udaipore Told By Lalla Ji The Priest
- Come Sleep, O Sleep! The Certain Knot Of Peace by Sir Philip Sidney
- My Soviet Passport by Vladimir Mayakovsky
- Эмиль Верхарн – Воскресное утро
- Владимир Набоков – И видел я, стемнели неба своды
- Robert Burns: The Banks O’ Doon: Second Version
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
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Липы
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Леля
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Л. Е. Ф.
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Слезы и звуки
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Скажите
- Владимир Бенедиктов – С могучей страстию в мучительной борьбе
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Роза и дева
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Ревность
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Ребенку
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Развалины
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Разлука
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Раздумье
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Распутие
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Радуга
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Пытки
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Прощание с саблею
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Прометей
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Привет старому 1858-му году
- Владимир Бенедиктов – При иллюминации
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Предостережение
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.