Best Barracks Poems

Germany, 1964

In barracks bare of beauty
I lay restlessly in bed. Around, a rife
of lifeless characters
from some Saturday charade
sullenly invite me to their ghastly parade.
I merely pull my blanket higher up
and blatantly yell out "Shaddup!"
A spot of flesh unknown to sun itches
so I scratch. Musty curtains...

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Behind a fence, the barracks,
the grim barracks,
but the barracks are no more.
Their domes were like an onion,
stealing the great show.

Julie went to see them in 1939,
but much after, no, soon after,
grim barracks were no more...
The onion domes don't mystify:
there's only mist to show.





6/21/2016...

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Son, you haven't really experienced life,
(And it will surely make you pine for a wife!),
Until you are thrust into noisy open-bay coops,
With fifty other snorting and snoring troops!

The sergeants demand that things be just right.
Bunks must be made with blankets smooth and tight!
Clothes must be...

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