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.

Poetry Monster – Home

A few random poems:

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 

• A Paralell Between Bowling And Preferment by William Strode by William Strode
• A New Year’s Gift by William Strode by William Strode
• A Necklace by William Strode by William Strode
• A Lover To His Mistress by William Strode by William Strode
• A Girdle by William Strode by William Strode
• Yesterday by W. S. Merwin by William Stanley Merwin
• Wish by W. S. Merwin by William Stanley Merwin
• Whenever I Go There by W. S. Merwin by William Stanley Merwin
• When You Go Away by W. S. Merwin by William Stanley Merwin
• Vehicles by W. S. Merwin by William Stanley Merwin
• Unknown Bird by W. S. Merwin by William Stanley Merwin
• The Speed Of Light by W. S. Merwin by William Stanley Merwin
• The Source by W. S. Merwin by William Stanley Merwin
• The Ships Are Made Ready In Silence by W. S. Merwin by William Stanley Merwin
• The River Of Bees by W. S. Merwin by William Stanley Merwin
• The Burnt Child by W. S. Merwin by William Stanley Merwin
• Term by W. S. Merwin by William Stanley Merwin
• Some Last Questions by W. S. Merwin by William Stanley Merwin
• One of the Lives by W. S. Merwin by William Stanley Merwin
• On the Subject of Poetry by W. S. Merwin by William Stanley Merwin

More external links (open in a new tab):

Russian Commerce Agency

Dealing Monster

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

Poems by Author and Category

The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works