What Did I Get from the AEF
I could already shoot straight, but
Literacy
YMCA membership
A new New Testament
Education in civics
Regular bathing
until I hit the trenches
Trench foot
Belly crawl in No Man’s Land
on an empty belly
The rattle of tommy guns
Fear that squeezed my throat
Froze my heartbeat
Summoned courage
A smattering of French
(outward) Sobriety
A heart for chance, the gamble
Horses
Sports
Cards
Craps
Not blinded by gas
Surviving
Expectation of vice raids
Appreciation for social purity
How to avoid the clap
If I wouldn’t use someone else’s toothbrush,
why would I use his whore?
A German bullet is cleaner than that.
A soldier thinking below the belt lacks efficiency.
My wooden leg and purple heart
Damn, it’s good to be home.
9 thoughts on "What Did I Get from the AEF"
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The history you make real in your poems shows with emotion and image what occured.
love: “A soldier thinking below the belt lacks efficiency.”
Thank you so much, Pam!
That below the belt statement came from Gen Pershing…who kept a French mistress in Paris for 18 mos. 😆
The events recounted here come alive with depth, movement, and authenticity. I always learn much about subject and craft from your writing. Thank you for sharing this superb write
Gosh, L! Thanks ever so much.
I took Frank X. Walker’s “sequential poetry” class. We had to use inspiration from KY history & write 10 poems. I did that & set it aside during my MFA program. I finally decided to get back to it. I love the research. 😊
I love the historical persona poems you’re writing. I have a diary my dad was given by the
Army to write in when he was in WWII. Soldiers got them while in boot camp. They were taken back when they were shipped out, and given back to them later. Much that he wrote was after the fact, so it lost some of the immediacy. I’m still happy to have it though.
That’s wonderful! My dad was a bomber pil9t in N. Africa, then Italy & Germany.
But the development of WWI, suffrage, spanish flu, prohibition, the Depression…This era is fertile ground!
Gosh, L! Thanks ever so much.
I took Frank X. Walker’s “sequential poetry” class. We had to use inspiration from KY history & write 10 poems. I did that & set it aside during my MFA program. I finally decided to get back to it. I love the research. 😊
Such interesting lives you share! Thank you.
Thank you, Bud!