Two Quits And Drum And Elegy Drinkers
A poem by Alan Dugan 1. ON ASPHALT: NO GREENS Quarry out the stone of land, cobble the beach, wall surf, name it “street,” allow no ground or green cover for animal sins, but let opacity of sand be glass to keep the heat outside, the senses in. Then, when time’s Drunk, reeling to […]
Two Quits And A Drum And Elegy For Drinkers
A poem by Alan Dugan 1. ON ASPHALT: NO GREENS Quarry out the stone of land, cobble the beach, wall surf, name it “street,” allow no ground or green cover for animal sins, but let opacity of sand be glass to keep the heat outside, the senses in. Then, when time’s Drunk, reeling to […]
To Sayf Al Dawla
A poem by Alan Dugan by Al Mutanabbi Resolutions are measured against those who make them; generosity in accordance with the giver. *** Littleness is magnified by small men, while grandeur is deprecated by the great. *** Sayf al-Dawla imposes upon the army his will, yet seasoned armies […]
Swing Shift Blues
A poem by Alan Dugan What is better than leaving a bar in the middle of the afternoon besides staying in it or not having gone into it in the first place because you had a decent woman to be with? The air smells particularly fresh after the stale beer and piss smells. You can […]
Remembering An Account Executive
A poem by Alan Dugan He had a back office in his older brother’s advertising agency and understood the human asshole. He turned his father’s small inheritance over and over on hemorrhoid ads between three-hour lunches at the Plaza every day and cocktails at five-thirty with different dressy women waiting in our front office. […]
Prison Song
A poem by Alan Dugan The skin ripples over my body like moon-wooed water, rearing to escape me. Where could it find another animal as naked as the one it hates to cover? Once it told me what was happening outside, who was attacking, who caressing, and what the air was doing to feed […]
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, […]
Plague Of Dead Sharks
A poem by Alan Dugan Who knows whether the sea heals or corrodes? The wading, wintered pack-beasts of the feet slough off, in spring, the dead rind of the shoes’ leather detention, the big toe’s yellow horn shines with a natural polish, and the whole person seems to profit. The opposite appears when dead […]
On Looking For Models
A poem by Alan Dugan The trees in time have something else to do besides their treeing. What is it. I’m a starving to death man myself, and thirsty, thirsty by their fountains but I cannot drink their mud and sunlight to be whole. I do not understand these presences that drink for months in […]
On The Civil War On The East Coast Of The United States Of North America 1860 64
A poem by Alan Dugan Because of the unaccountable spirit of the troops oh we were marched as we were never marched before and flanked them off from home. Stupid Meade was after them, head on to tail, but we convinced him, finally, to flank, flank, cut off their head. He finally understood, the […]
On Hurricane Jackson
A poem by Alan Dugan Now his nose’s bridge is broken, one eye will not focus and the other is a stray; trainers whisper in his mouth while one ear listens to itself, clenched like a fist; generally shadowboxing in a smoky room, his mind hides like the aching boys who lost a contest […]
On Being A Householder
A poem by Alan Dugan I live inside of a machine or machines. Every time one goes off another starts. Why don’t I go outside and sleep on the ground. It is because I’m scared of the open night and stars looking down at me as God’s eyes, full of questions; and when I […]
On A Seven Day Diary
A poem by Alan Dugan Oh I got up and went to work and worked and came back home and ate and talked and went to sleep. Then I got up and went to work and worked and came back home from work and ate and slept. Then I got up and went to […]
Nomenclature
A poem by Alan Dugan My mother never heard of Freud and she decided as a little girl that she would call her husband Dick no matter what his first name was and did. He called her Ditty. They called me Bud, and our generic names amused my analyst. That must, she said, explain the […]
Monologue Of A Commercial Fisherman
A poem by Alan Dugan “If you work a body of water and a body of woman you can take fish out of one and children out of the other for the two kinds of survival. The fishing is good, both kinds are adequate in pleasures and yield, but the hard work and the […]
Internal Migration On Being On Tour
A poem by Alan Dugan As an American traveler I have to remember not to get actionably mad about the way things are around here. Tomorrow I’ll be a thousand miles away from the way it is around here. I will keep my temper, I will not kill the dog next door, nor will […]
Internal Migration Being Tour
A poem by Alan Dugan As an American traveler I have to remember not to get actionably mad about the way things are around here. Tomorrow I’ll be a thousand miles away from the way it is around here. I will keep my temper, I will not kill the dog next door, nor will […]
How We Heard The Name
A poem by Alan Dugan The river brought down dead horses, dead men and military debris, indicative of war or official acts upstream, but it went by, it all goes by, that is the thing about the river. Then a soldier on a log went by. He seemed drunk and we asked him Why had […]
Fabrication Of Ancestors
A poem by Alan Dugan For old Billy Dugan, shot in the ass in the Civil War, my father said. The old wound in my ass has opened up again, but I am past the prodigies of youth’s campaigns, and weep where I used to laugh in war’s red humors, half in love with […]
Elegy
A poem by Alan Dugan I know but will not tell you, Aunt Irene, why there are soap suds in the whiskey: Uncle Robert had to have A drink while shaving. Poetry Monster – Home A few random poems: [arpw limit=”15″] External links Bat’s Poetry Page – more […]
Drunken Memories Of Anne Sexton
A poem by Alan Dugan The first and last time I met my ex-lover Anne Sexton was at a protest poetry reading against some anti-constitutional war in Asia when some academic son of a bitch, to test her reputation as a drunk, gave her a beer glass full of wine after our reading. She drank […]
Civil War East Coast United States North America 1860 64
A poem by Alan Dugan Because of the unaccountable spirit of the troops oh we were marched as we were never marched before and flanked them off from home. Stupid Meade was after them, head on to tail, but we convinced him, finally, to flank, flank, cut off their head. He finally understood, the […]
Against A Sickness To The Female Double Principle God
A poem by Alan Dugan She said: “I’m god and all of this and that world and love garbage and slaughter all the time and spring once a year. Once a year I like to love. You can adjust to the discipline or not, and your sacrificial act called ‘Fruitfulness in Decay’ would be […]
A Young Soul
A poem by Alan Dugan by Al Mutanabbi A young soul in my ageing body plays, Though time’s sharp blades my weary visage raze. *** Hard biter in a toothless mouth is she, The will may wane, but she a winner stays. *** Spare me to win glory’s […]