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 

• Sonnet 97: How like a winter hath my absence been by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 96: Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet CXXVIII by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet CXXVII by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet CXXVI by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet CXXV by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet CXXIX by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet CXXIV by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet CXXIII by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet CXXII by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet CXXI by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet CXX by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet CXVIII by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet CXVII by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet CXV by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet CXLVIII by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet CXLVII by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet CXLVI by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet CXLV by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet CXLIX by William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

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Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.

 

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