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 

• A Prayer For Old Age by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• A Prayer For My Son by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• A Nativity by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• A Memory Of Youth by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• A Meditation In Time Of War by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• A Man Young And Old: X. His Wildness by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• A Man Young And Old: VIII. Summer And Spring by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• A Man Young And Old: VII. The Friends Of His Youth by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• A Man Young And Old: VI. His Memories by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• A Man Young And Old: V. The Empty Cup by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• A Man Young And Old: IX. The Secrets Of The Old by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• A Man Young And Old: IV. The Death Of The Hare by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• A Man Young And Old: III. The Mermaid by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• A Man Young And Old: II. Human Dignity by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• A Man Young And Old: I. First Love by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• A Last Confession by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• A Friend’s Illness by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• A First Confession by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• A Faery Song by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• A Drunken Man’s Praise Of Sobriety by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats

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