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 81: Or I shall live your epitaph to make by William Shakespeare
- The Road to Avignon poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- come on in, baby by Raj Arumugam
- A Boy by Sara Teasdale
- Владимир Маяковский – Нечеловеческой силы требовала война… (Главполитпросвет №285)
- Love and Wine by William Wycherley
- Song—O can ye Labour Lea? by Robert Burns
- Sonnet 37: As a decrepit father takes delight by William Shakespeare
- Always for the first time
- Does It Matter? by Siegfried Sassoon
- Going Back to School by Stephen Vincent Benet
- In A Garden by Sara Teasdale
- On An Old Woman (From The Greek) by William Cowper
- Missing Person by Vinita Agrawal
- Robert Burns: Stanzas On Naething: Extempore Epistle to Gavin Hamilton, Esq.
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
- Юлиан Анисимов – Круглогодие
- Юлиан Анисимов – Камнем сгрудилась комната
- Юлиан Анисимов – Из Рильке
- Ярослав Смеляков – Земляника
- Ярослав Смеляков – Здравствуй, Пушкин
- Ярослав Смеляков – Я отюдова уйду
- Ярослав Смеляков – Хорошая девочка Лида
- Ярослав Смеляков – Вот опять ты мне вспомнилась, мама
- Ярослав Смеляков – В защиту домино
- Ярослав Смеляков – Три витязя
- Ярослав Смеляков – Стихи, написанные в псковской гостинице
- Ярослав Смеляков – Стихи, написанные на почте
- Ярослав Смеляков – Шинель
- Ярослав Смеляков – Русский язык
- Юлия Друнина – Геологиня
- Юлия Друнина – Есть время любить
- Юлия Друнина – Есть праздники, что навсегда с тобой
- Юлия Друнина – Елка
- Юлия Друнина – Два вечера
- Юлия Друнина – Другу
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.