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 

• Infelix by Adah Isaacs Menken
• Hemlock Furrows by Adah Isaacs Menken
• Genius by Adah Isaacs Menken
• Fragment by Adah Isaacs Menken
• Dying by Adah Isaacs Menken
• Dreams Beauty by Adah Isaacs Menken
• Depths by Adah Isaacs Menken
• Battle Stars by Adah Isaacs Menken
• Aspiration by Adah Isaacs Menken
• Answer Me by Adah Isaacs Menken
• Adelina Patti by Adah Isaacs Menken
• The Nuclear Ghost Towns by Poetry In English
• The Conditional by Poetry In English
• The Ugly Little Bird by Poetry In English
• Not A Star by Poetry In English
• Mountain Wellhead by Poetry In English
• Lightning In The Dark Night Skies by Poetry In English
• In The Bus That Is Frantically Rushing From Cairo To Port Said by Poetry In English
• Immoral Laboratories by Poetry In English
• Hope by Poetry In English

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