Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

"Memorial Service for Invasion Beach Where Vacation in Flesh Is Over" by Alan Dugan is a vivid and haunting depiction of a battlefield turned into a site of death and decay, metaphorically described as the end of "vacation in flesh." The poem delves into themes of mortality, the inevitability of death, and the transformation of a place from a site of violent conflict to one of somber reflection and natural reclamation.

Dugan uses stark and powerful imagery to create a visceral scene of a beach, not as a place of leisure, but as a final resting place for the casualties of war. The poem begins with the speaker's approach to the beach, describing it as something inevitable that he is drawn to, regardless of his desire to avoid it: "It is ahead of me and I walk toward it...If, in the approach to it, I turn my back to it, then I walk backwards: I approach it as a limit." This depiction suggests a gravitational pull towards death or fate, a force that one cannot escape but can only confront, whether willingly or reluctantly.

The landscape is described in terms of stark contrasts between the rising land and the receding ocean, with the sky being an omnipresent but unobservable force "around, as ever, all around." This setting frames the beach as a threshold between life and death, a liminal space where the remnants of conflict meet the natural world.

The presence of scavengers—vultures and dogs—is emblematic of the aftermath of battle, with these creatures depicted almost as officials at a ceremony: "The courteous vultures move away in groups like functionaries. The dogs circle and stare like working police." This anthropomorphism imbues the scene with a chilling sense of order and routine, as if the cleanup and consumption of the dead are part of a formal, bureaucratic process.

The speaker's journey towards this macabre spectacle is described in terms of struggle and resignation. The approach is so intense and focused that it distorts his physical orientation: "going so far away that when I get there I am sideways like the crab, too limited by carapace to say: 'Oh here I am arrived, all; yours today.'" This imagery suggests a transformation of the self in the face of overwhelming forces, a loss of human dignity and individuality as one becomes part of the landscape of death.

The visceral detail of a horse "whose belly has been hollowed from the rear, who's eyeless" and a dog "trapped in its ribs grins as it eats its way to freedom" portrays a grim tableau of survival and the brutal realities of nature's reclaiming of life. These descriptions highlight the grotesque and inevitable cycle of life and death, where even in demise, there is movement and transformation.

The poem concludes with a powerful sense of dissolution and disorientation: "Not conquered outwardly, and after rising once, I fall away inside, and see the sky around rush out away into the vulture's craw and barely can not hear them calling, 'Here's one.'" The speaker's identity and consciousness dissipate into the environment, his senses overwhelmed by the forces of decay and reclamation.

Overall, Dugan's poem is a profound meditation on the aftermath of violence and the human condition in the face of mortality. It challenges the reader to confront the realities of death and the natural processes that follow, depicting the beach not merely as a place of physical geography but as a psychic and existential battleground.

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