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, of germans and replacements, who

refused three stripes to keep his B.A.R.,

who fought, fought not to fight some days

like any good small businessman of war,

and dug more holes than an outside dog

to modify some Freudian’s thesis: “No

man can stand three hundred days

of fear of mutilation and death.” What he

theorized was a joke: “To keep a tight

asshole, dry socks and a you-deep hole

with you at all times.” Afterwards,

met in a sports shirt with a round wife, he was

the clean slave of a daughter, a power brake

and beer. To me, he seemed diminished

in his dream, or else enlarged, who knows?,

by its accomplishment: personal life

wrung from mass issues in a bloody time

and lived out hiddenly. Aside from sound

baseball talk, his only interesting remark

was, in pointing to his wife’s belly, “If

he comes out left foot first” (the way

you Forward March!), “I am going to stuff

him back up.” “Isn’t he awful?” she said.

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Poems in English 

• Afridi Love by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Adoration by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Whispering In Wattle Boughs by Adam Lindsay Gordon
• Thoras Song Ashtaroth by Adam Lindsay Gordon
• The Swimmer by Adam Lindsay Gordon
• The Sick Stockrider by Adam Lindsay Gordon
• The Last Leap by Adam Lindsay Gordon
• Gone by Adam Lindsay Gordon
• An Exiles Farewell by Adam Lindsay Gordon
• A Song Of Autumn by Adam Lindsay Gordon
• A Dedication by Adam Lindsay Gordon
• Medical Ethics by Fledermaus
• Facebook by Fledermaus
• Vain by Adah Isaacs Menken
• Myself by Adah Isaacs Menken
• My Heritage by Adah Isaacs Menken
• Miserimus by Adah Isaacs Menken
• Memory by Adah Isaacs Menken
• Karazah Karl by Adah Isaacs Menken
• Judith by Adah Isaacs Menken

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