Portrait From The Infantry

A poem by Alan Dugan

He smelled bad and was red-eyed with the miseries

of being scared while sleepless when he said

this: “I want a private woman, peace and quiet,

and some green stuff in my pocket. Fuck

the rest.” Pity the underwear and socks,

long burnt, of an accomplished murderer,

oh God, of germans and replacements, who

refused three stripes to keep his B.A.R.,

who fought, fought not to fight some days

like any good small businessman of war,

and dug more holes than an outside dog

to modify some Freudian’s thesis: “No

man can stand three hundred days

of fear of mutilation and death.” What he

theorized was a joke: “To keep a tight

asshole, dry socks and a you-deep hole

with you at all times.” Afterwards,

met in a sports shirt with a round wife, he was

the clean slave of a daughter, a power brake

and beer. To me, he seemed diminished

in his dream, or else enlarged, who knows?,

by its accomplishment: personal life

wrung from mass issues in a bloody time

and lived out hiddenly. Aside from sound

baseball talk, his only interesting remark

was, in pointing to his wife’s belly, “If

he comes out left foot first” (the way

you Forward March!), “I am going to stuff

him back up.” “Isn’t he awful?” she said.

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Poems in English 

• Yasmini by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Yasin Khan by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Written In Cananore by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Wings by Adela Florence Nicolson
• When Love Is Over by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Verses by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Verses Faiz Ulla by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Verse By Taj Mahomed by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Vayu The Wind by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Valgovinds Song In The Spring by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Valgovinds Boat Song by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Unforgotten by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Unanswered by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Two Songs By Sitara Of Kashmir by Adela Florence Nicolson
• To The Unattainable by Adela Florence Nicolson
• To The Unattainable Lament Of Mahomed Akram by Adela Florence Nicolson
• To The Hills by Adela Florence Nicolson
• To M C N by Adela Florence Nicolson
• To Aziz Song Of Mahomed Akram by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Till I Wake by Adela Florence Nicolson

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