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 VII. To Solitude poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet VI. To G. A. W. poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet V. To A Friend Who Sent Me Some Roses poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet To The Nile poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet To Spenser poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet To Sleep poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet To Mrs. Reynolds’s Cat poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet To John Hamilton Reynolds poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet To Homer poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet To George Keats: Written In Sickness poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet To Chatterton poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet To Byron poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet. To A Young Lady Who Sent Me A Laurel Crown poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet. To A Lady Seen For A Few Moments At Vauxhall poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet. The Human Seasons poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet. The Day Is Gone poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet. On The Sea poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet On Sitting Down To Read King Lear Once Again poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet. On Peace poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet. On Leigh Hunt’s Poem ‘The Story of Rimini’ poem – John Keats poems by John Keats

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