Infantry Assault
The way he made that corpse dance by emptying
one magazine after another into it and the way
the way the corpse’s face began to peel off like a mask
because the skull had been shattered, brains
spilled out, but he couldn’t stop killing that corpse,
wanted to make damn sure, I thought maybe
he was killing all the one’s he’d missed, and
the way they dragged that guy out of the stream,
cut him to pieces, the stream running red
with all the bodies in it, and the way the captain
didn’t try to stop them, his silence saying, No Prisoners,
and,
the way when all the Cong were dead, lined up in rows,
thirty-nine in all, our boys went to work on all
the pigs and chickens in the village until there
was no place that was not red, and
finally, how the thatch was lit, the village burned
and how afterwards we were quiet riding back
on the tracks, watching the ancestral serpent rise
over the village in black coils, and
how our bones knew what we’d done.
_________________
Night Ambush
We are still, lips swollen with mosquito bites.
A treeline opens out onto paddies
quartered by dikes, a moon in each,
and in the center, the hedged island of a village
floats in its own time, ribboned with smoke.
Someone is cooking fish.
Whispers move across water.
Children and old people. Anyone between
is a target. It is so quiet
you can hear a safety clicked off
all the way on the other side.
Things live in my hair. I do not bathe.
I have thrown away my underwear.
I have forgotten the why of everything.
I sense an indifference larger than anything
I know. All that will remain of us
is rusting metal disappearing in vines.
____________________
Memorial Day
They could not wish for a more perfect day: eighty degrees
and the sky so blue they can’t look at it for fear of opening
themselves to the past—a childhood in the woods
or falling in love the first time, all of this in flood surge.
The smell of basted steaks brings back the solidity of purpose.
The grandmother naps in her sunhat, a tender breeze on her arms.
A little boy turns the crank of the ice cream maker
and a badminton game is in full heat, the players imagining
themselves professional, getting testy and competitive
until the cold beer quiets them. There’s an off-color joke
(it’s allowed as long as there’s nothing as specific as condoms)
and the wives gossip about the queer scoutmaster,
or the man down the street who, caught in a cathouse, lost his job.
It’s only old Herman sitting a few yards off in the recliner
who looks beyond them into a burning village where a marine
drags a wounded man by his heels behind a tank for cover
and the tank backs up and runs over them both.
Herman, come get some potato salad. Herman would you like
another beer? Put on your hat so you don’t get those cancers.
Stop moving your mouth like that —who are you talking to?
He gets up and limps to the table and loads up his plate.
Then goes back to his chair where he will sit, alone, and those
pushed beyond trying will not come to his side and listen.
________________
Doug Anderson was a Navy Corpsman in a Marine rifle company in 1967. He is widely published and has received numerous awards and fellowships. His book The Moon Reflected Fire won the Kate Tufts Discovering Award and Blues for Unemployed Secret Police a grant from the Eric Matthieu King Fund of the Academy of American Poets. Following Horse Medicine (Barrow Street Books), his recent book of poems is Undress, She Said (Four Way Books). See more of Doug’s work on his website.
Three Poems by Doug Anderson
Infantry Assault
The way he made that corpse dance by emptying
one magazine after another into it and the way
the way the corpse’s face began to peel off like a mask
because the skull had been shattered, brains
spilled out, but he couldn’t stop killing that corpse,
wanted to make damn sure, I thought maybe
he was killing all the one’s he’d missed, and
the way they dragged that guy out of the stream,
cut him to pieces, the stream running red
with all the bodies in it, and the way the captain
didn’t try to stop them, his silence saying, No Prisoners,
and,
the way when all the Cong were dead, lined up in rows,
thirty-nine in all, our boys went to work on all
the pigs and chickens in the village until there
was no place that was not red, and
finally, how the thatch was lit, the village burned
and how afterwards we were quiet riding back
on the tracks, watching the ancestral serpent rise
over the village in black coils, and
how our bones knew what we’d done.
_________________
Night Ambush
We are still, lips swollen with mosquito bites.
A treeline opens out onto paddies
quartered by dikes, a moon in each,
and in the center, the hedged island of a village
floats in its own time, ribboned with smoke.
Someone is cooking fish.
Whispers move across water.
Children and old people. Anyone between
is a target. It is so quiet
you can hear a safety clicked off
all the way on the other side.
Things live in my hair. I do not bathe.
I have thrown away my underwear.
I have forgotten the why of everything.
I sense an indifference larger than anything
I know. All that will remain of us
is rusting metal disappearing in vines.
____________________
Memorial Day
They could not wish for a more perfect day: eighty degrees
and the sky so blue they can’t look at it for fear of opening
themselves to the past—a childhood in the woods
or falling in love the first time, all of this in flood surge.
The smell of basted steaks brings back the solidity of purpose.
The grandmother naps in her sunhat, a tender breeze on her arms.
A little boy turns the crank of the ice cream maker
and a badminton game is in full heat, the players imagining
themselves professional, getting testy and competitive
until the cold beer quiets them. There’s an off-color joke
(it’s allowed as long as there’s nothing as specific as condoms)
and the wives gossip about the queer scoutmaster,
or the man down the street who, caught in a cathouse, lost his job.
It’s only old Herman sitting a few yards off in the recliner
who looks beyond them into a burning village where a marine
drags a wounded man by his heels behind a tank for cover
and the tank backs up and runs over them both.
Herman, come get some potato salad. Herman would you like
another beer? Put on your hat so you don’t get those cancers.
Stop moving your mouth like that —who are you talking to?
He gets up and limps to the table and loads up his plate.
Then goes back to his chair where he will sit, alone, and those
pushed beyond trying will not come to his side and listen.
________________
Doug Anderson was a Navy Corpsman in a Marine rifle company in 1967. He is widely published and has received numerous awards and fellowships. His book The Moon Reflected Fire won the Kate Tufts Discovering Award and Blues for Unemployed Secret Police a grant from the Eric Matthieu King Fund of the Academy of American Poets. Following Horse Medicine (Barrow Street Books), his recent book of poems is Undress, She Said (Four Way Books). See more of Doug’s work on his website.