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 idiot, and got a fort
named after him, for wisdom. He probably thought
Lee would conquer Washington from Appomattox
if he, Meade, should march his infantry behind
him, Lee. Ah well, the unaccountable spirit of the troops
triumphed, Meade got his fort, Grant got his presidency,
Sherman got his motto, what was it? War is heck?, Lee got a military school
for the education of young Southern gentlemen, and the Union
Army was taken over by Southern noncommissioned officers
in the wars against the Indians to the west. I know all
about this, I know who won, I served under them
for three hundred and fifty years in World War II,
just long enough not to be called a rookie but a veteran,
and realized the rank and order of my enemies:
first, the West Point officers; second, the red-neck sergeants;
third, the Nazis and perhaps the Japanese. I won
all of these wars as a private soldier, for a while,
and am happy to have done so: without me
Hitler and Hirohito would he ruling the world
instead of America and Russia, but I still will not
drive through Georgia with New York license plates.
A few random poems:
- Наум Коржавин – Никакой истерики
- Валерий Брюсов – И небо и серое море
- Eyesight poem – A. R. Ammons poems | Poetry Monster
- Николай Некрасов – Демону
- Looks A-Know’d Avore by William Barnes
- Communal War
- Climbing poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Hoffer by William Wordsworth
- Николай Гербель – Простор
- Джон Донн – Лекция о тени
- Robert Burns: Man Was Made To Mourn: A Dirge:
- The Drèven O’ The Common by William Barnes
- The Uses of the Eye by Paul Blackburn
- An Epistle Containing the Strange Medical Experience of Kar by Robert Browning
- Arrival by Philip Larkin
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
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Poems in English
- To A Young Writer by Yvor Winters
- Time And The Garden by Yvor Winters
- The Slow Pacific Swell by Yvor Winters
- The Moralists by Yvor Winters
- The Journey by Yvor Winters
- The Fable by Yvor Winters
- The Empty Hills by Yvor Winters
- Sir Gawaine And The Green Knight by Yvor Winters
- One Ran Before by Yvor Winters
- On A View Of Pasadena From The Hills by Yvor Winters
- Night Of Battle by Yvor Winters
- Much In Little by Yvor Winters
- Moonrise by Yvor Winters
- John Sutter by Yvor Winters
- God Of Roads by Yvor Winters
- At The San Francisco Airport by Yvor Winters
- An October Nocturne by Yvor Winters
- Alone by Yvor Winters
- A Song In Passing by Yvor Winters
- The Tavern by Willa Cather
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Alan Dugan (1923 – 2003) an American poet, a contemporary classic of American poetry.