First Things RSS Feed - Lawrence Dugan https://www.firstthings.com/author/lawrence-dugan en-us Copyright 2025 First Things. All Rights Reserved. ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:55:03 -0500 https://d2201k5v4hmrsv.cloudfront.net/img/favicon-196.png First Things RSS Feed Image https://www.firstthings.com/rss/author/lawrence-dugan 60 Critics Under Statues https://www.firstthings.com/article/1997/10/005-critics-under-statues https://www.firstthings.com/article/1997/10/005-critics-under-statues Wed, 01 Oct 1997 00:00:00 -0400 Beneath statues
of Civil War heros
On bronze horses, Green with age
And victory, sits
The ragged infantry Of every park,
Pairs of drunks
Passing bottles Back and forth
Like magicians
Handling fire, Swallowing wine
Cold and raw,
Swapping tales Of war, agreed
That bums should
Be in bronze And generals made
To sit on benches.
The democracy Of summer has
Its say. Come
December, hands Stretched out
To trash-can fires
Long for peace.

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]]> Victory Near the Plaza https://www.firstthings.com/article/1991/04/victory-near-the-plaza https://www.firstthings.com/article/1991/04/victory-near-the-plaza Mon, 01 Apr 1991 00:00:00 -0500 “Sherman Led by Victory” 
Is a St. Gaudens statue, 
A cast-bronze allegory. 
With Victory as a woman 
Pulling his horse’s bridle 
Out of a sculptor’s stable. 
Leading him off the pedestal 
Into a bronze fable.

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]]> An Old Radio in Atlantic City https://www.firstthings.com/article/1991/03/an-old-radio-in-atlantic-city https://www.firstthings.com/article/1991/03/an-old-radio-in-atlantic-city Fri, 01 Mar 1991 00:00:00 -0500 It drew people to it like a fire,
The needle floating up and down its dial,
Fishing for the news. It was a horror house,
A band-stand, Europe in flames,
A dummy and his master.

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]]> Nine Numbers https://www.firstthings.com/article/1990/10/nine-numbers https://www.firstthings.com/article/1990/10/nine-numbers Mon, 01 Oct 1990 00:00:00 -0400 On card after card he sees it. 
Along with a harsh identity photograph 
And his preposterous signature, 
A black line struggling into a name. 
The face is Irish, and his name. 
And even some of the wallet cards, 
The printer prayer to St. John Neumann, 
Bohemian bishop in round red cap; 
But numbers have no nationality. 
They cross frontiers at will. 
A girl I know isn’t a number to me. 
And yet somewhere she is, an ordering 
Of digits, a life on file we all have. 
Everywhere the stamp of nine numbers. 
The calm clerk never blinks an eye 
At the sight of her, pushes a button 
And gathers information for the towers 
Of the future, the ivory silos of the west 
Where facts fit into place. 
The vast gadgetry that hums all night 
In the basements of Manhattan 
Feeds on numbers, passes them to us. 
They never send a dozen roses 
Or light holy candles, but make decisions. 
Find secret markets, win chess games. 
And fight the wars to come. 
They breathe a blue bureaucracy to life. 
We think, and we are wrong. 
We are the life of nine numbers. 
There is no crystal cortex 
Chopping thoughts to flute music, 
Prometheus is a small man behind a curtain. 
We hope for the perfect enemy to fight 
And find a night-guard sitting in a green light. 
In the end is the number 
And the number is nothing. Zeros die in space. 
Wisdom flows from God, to us.

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