Two Quits And Drum And Elegy Drinkers
A poem by Alan Dugan 1. ON ASPHALT: NO GREENS Quarry out the stone of land, cobble the beach, wall surf, name it “street,” allow no ground or green cover for animal sins, but let opacity of sand be glass to keep the heat outside, the senses in. Then, when time’s Drunk, reeling to […]
Two Quits And A Drum And Elegy For Drinkers
A poem by Alan Dugan 1. ON ASPHALT: NO GREENS Quarry out the stone of land, cobble the beach, wall surf, name it “street,” allow no ground or green cover for animal sins, but let opacity of sand be glass to keep the heat outside, the senses in. Then, when time’s Drunk, reeling to […]
To Sayf Al Dawla
A poem by Alan Dugan by Al Mutanabbi Resolutions are measured against those who make them; generosity in accordance with the giver. *** Littleness is magnified by small men, while grandeur is deprecated by the great. *** Sayf al-Dawla imposes upon the army his will, yet seasoned armies […]
Swing Shift Blues
A poem by Alan Dugan What is better than leaving a bar in the middle of the afternoon besides staying in it or not having gone into it in the first place because you had a decent woman to be with? The air smells particularly fresh after the stale beer and piss smells. You can […]
Remembering An Account Executive
A poem by Alan Dugan He had a back office in his older brother’s advertising agency and understood the human asshole. He turned his father’s small inheritance over and over on hemorrhoid ads between three-hour lunches at the Plaza every day and cocktails at five-thirty with different dressy women waiting in our front office. […]
Prison Song
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 […]
Portrait From The Infantry
A poem by Alan Dugan He smelled bad and was red-eyed with the miseries of being scared while sleepless when he said this: “I want a private woman, peace and quiet, and some green stuff in my pocket. Fuck the rest.” Pity the underwear and socks, long burnt, of an accomplished murderer, oh God, […]
Plague Of Dead Sharks
A poem by Alan Dugan Who knows whether the sea heals or corrodes? The wading, wintered pack-beasts of the feet slough off, in spring, the dead rind of the shoes’ leather detention, the big toe’s yellow horn shines with a natural polish, and the whole person seems to profit. The opposite appears when dead […]
On Looking For Models
A poem by Alan Dugan The trees in time have something else to do besides their treeing. What is it. I’m a starving to death man myself, and thirsty, thirsty by their fountains but I cannot drink their mud and sunlight to be whole. I do not understand these presences that drink for months in […]
On The Civil War On The East Coast Of The United States Of North America 1860 64
A poem by Alan Dugan Because of the unaccountable spirit of the troops oh we were marched as we were never marched before and flanked them off from home. Stupid Meade was after them, head on to tail, but we convinced him, finally, to flank, flank, cut off their head. He finally understood, the […]
On Hurricane Jackson
A poem by Alan Dugan Now his nose’s bridge is broken, one eye will not focus and the other is a stray; trainers whisper in his mouth while one ear listens to itself, clenched like a fist; generally shadowboxing in a smoky room, his mind hides like the aching boys who lost a contest […]
On Being A Householder
A poem by Alan Dugan I live inside of a machine or machines. Every time one goes off another starts. Why don’t I go outside and sleep on the ground. It is because I’m scared of the open night and stars looking down at me as God’s eyes, full of questions; and when I […]
On A Seven Day Diary
A poem by Alan Dugan Oh I got up and went to work and worked and came back home and ate and talked and went to sleep. Then I got up and went to work and worked and came back home from work and ate and slept. Then I got up and went to […]
Nomenclature
A poem by Alan Dugan My mother never heard of Freud and she decided as a little girl that she would call her husband Dick no matter what his first name was and did. He called her Ditty. They called me Bud, and our generic names amused my analyst. That must, she said, explain the […]
Monologue Of A Commercial Fisherman
A poem by Alan Dugan “If you work a body of water and a body of woman you can take fish out of one and children out of the other for the two kinds of survival. The fishing is good, both kinds are adequate in pleasures and yield, but the hard work and the […]
Internal Migration On Being On Tour
A poem by Alan Dugan As an American traveler I have to remember not to get actionably mad about the way things are around here. Tomorrow I’ll be a thousand miles away from the way it is around here. I will keep my temper, I will not kill the dog next door, nor will […]
Internal Migration Being Tour
A poem by Alan Dugan As an American traveler I have to remember not to get actionably mad about the way things are around here. Tomorrow I’ll be a thousand miles away from the way it is around here. I will keep my temper, I will not kill the dog next door, nor will […]
How We Heard The Name
A poem by Alan Dugan The river brought down dead horses, dead men and military debris, indicative of war or official acts upstream, but it went by, it all goes by, that is the thing about the river. Then a soldier on a log went by. He seemed drunk and we asked him Why had […]
Fabrication Of Ancestors
A poem by Alan Dugan For old Billy Dugan, shot in the ass in the Civil War, my father said. The old wound in my ass has opened up again, but I am past the prodigies of youth’s campaigns, and weep where I used to laugh in war’s red humors, half in love with […]
Elegy
A poem by Alan Dugan I know but will not tell you, Aunt Irene, why there are soap suds in the whiskey: Uncle Robert had to have A drink while shaving. Poetry Monster – Home A few random poems: External links Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry […]
Drunken Memories Of Anne Sexton
A poem by Alan Dugan The first and last time I met my ex-lover Anne Sexton was at a protest poetry reading against some anti-constitutional war in Asia when some academic son of a bitch, to test her reputation as a drunk, gave her a beer glass full of wine after our reading. She drank […]
Civil War East Coast United States North America 1860 64
A poem by Alan Dugan Because of the unaccountable spirit of the troops oh we were marched as we were never marched before and flanked them off from home. Stupid Meade was after them, head on to tail, but we convinced him, finally, to flank, flank, cut off their head. He finally understood, the […]
Against A Sickness To The Female Double Principle God
A poem by Alan Dugan She said: “I’m god and all of this and that world and love garbage and slaughter all the time and spring once a year. Once a year I like to love. You can adjust to the discipline or not, and your sacrificial act called ‘Fruitfulness in Decay’ would be […]
A Young Soul
A poem by Alan Dugan by Al Mutanabbi A young soul in my ageing body plays, Though time’s sharp blades my weary visage raze. *** Hard biter in a toothless mouth is she, The will may wane, but she a winner stays. *** Spare me to win glory’s […]
Broken wings of a Heart by Saajida Gora
Deepest oceans, mountains high, I wish I cud sail Through the libertied sky, Darkness surrounds Silencing the sounds Pangs of memories Are the only thing that hounds The rythmic beating tells a story untold To the world around her Solitude is gold She longs for the sunlight But the ocean sealed a vow She longs […]
Being Underwater by Sahiti Siddharth
Being underwater is like a trip to heaven Being underwater is so sweet Being underwater is like flying in the ocean Where the surface is meters beneath your feet Being underwater is like a dream come true I wish it was real, but the chances are few Being underwater is like returning to childhood When […]
Awake by Sara Herlihy
Awake by Sara Herlihy As dawn breaks and my body stirs, my mind struggles to stay wrapped in your embrace. Warm breath tickles my face as soft lips caress it. Love and yearning penetrate my deepest layers. I never want to leave. A thousand years could pass but a minute would not be missed As […]
Attitude: Don Juan in the Shopping Mall by S. K. Kelen
Attitude: Don Juan in the Shopping Mall by S. K. Kelen Let us fly to bounty land…Aqua I Today’s Don Juan could be any of a million characters: Mohammed Hatim a wayward son of the Mujahideen, Doan Huan sporting a Da Nang pedigree, or Mario Lanza living out a serious fetish for muscle cars, Jim […]
Aspirations by SAAJIDA GORA
The essence of her soul lies within the purity of her heart The breath of her words illuminates a guiding path The voice of her aspiring dreams whispers subtle, compassionate beams The fluttering of her infinite love disperses through the smog filled air grappling through the unstable torrents Will it all be in despair? Poetry […]
ASHA APARTMENTS, 416, S.V. ROAD by Santosh Kumar Panda
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday Not Thursday Again Friday Not Saturday This time you disappeared on Thursday Saturday… was my… holiday Crossing the divider & using the long distance route for my destination I waited unknowingly going on in desperate Then here you come & checked me crossing the divider This is alone I look forward to […]
As if by Sara Herlihy
As if by Sara Herlihy Like a cloud Listless Hopeless Floating through a clear blue sky waiting… Just waiting… Until I evaporate and disappear. As if I never was. As if I didn’t impact the millions of eyes who saw my magnificent beauty grace their souls. As if I never was. I KNOW I was […]
Amity’s Death by SAAJIDA GORA
Woe is unto me Thou shalt never see. Despair, Despair, despair Viciously ripped, unaware Beams of amity like the essence of air Flowed smoothly through destined to share So precious, so pearly, so diamondly rare Velvety threads of gentle care Time has sought the light of th sun Time has sought the […]
America, America by Saadi Youssef
God save America, My home, sweet home! We are not hostages, America, and your soldiers are not God’s soldiers… We are the poor ones, ours is the earth of the drowned gods, the gods of bulls, the gods of fires, the gods of sorrows that intertwine clay and blood in a song… We are the […]
A Writer’s Pen by Sahiti Siddharth
A pen, when a writer holds A brand new chapter unfolds A few lines can make him the king It can make him fly on a single wing A writer without his pen Is like a leader without powers A writer without his pen Is like a garden without flowers A writer’s pen Makes him […]
A Traveller’s Guide to the East Indies by S. K. Kelen
A Traveller’s Guide to the East Indies by S. K. Kelen 1. To arrive anywhere tonight you travel a road lit only by fireflies to towns whose names really mean ‘tomb of a hundred martyrs’. Invisible birds sing tinkling vowels — words from a time before history invaded. Frogs roar louder and louder kick-starting a […]
A sense’s addiction to chocolate by SAAJIDA GORA
The sensual mouth’s craving desires are finding sweet addiction’s rapid fires, The enticing chocolate mounds of pure pleasure, melting in a fervent, passionate, river appealing rugged hazelnut mountains, swim in the oceans of chocolate fountains. Sensations so pure, desires so dreamy, A tantalizing taste, so eerily creamy. The earthy, nutty flavour splashing around, spreading sweet […]
A Father’s Hands by Scott Ransopher
A Father’s Hands by Scott Ransopher Men would bet upon her father’s hands. Could he pick up in just one fist A dozen eggs scattered on the table– One by one–cracking none? He’d reach his hand (stretched at five by Pulsing milk from freshened cows) And settle shells beneath knuckle’s crease. Then pressing oh so […]
Welcome To My World © by Shannen Wrass
Have you ever tried to cry But there’s no tears left to shed Have you ever seen the face of misery Or looked into the eyes of dread Have you ever gripped the pain Cause it’s all that’s left to hold Have you ever tried so hard to love But found, your heart was just […]
Time Out To Cry by Shannen Wrass
All alone at the end of the day The time, just a little past ten Evening has come for a short stay It’s time for her sorrow again The smile on her face she’s been holding Suddenly, she lets fall And the feelings begin unfolding She comes out of her personal wall As the world […]
The Wrath of Love by Shawn Ervin
The Wrath of Love by Shawn Ervin It was an autumn morn; the smell of passing in the air was born, For my love, I waited my life for this woman that I adore, In the distance, we heard a bell, towering high, the church of angel, A shriek was heard as time seemed to […]