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 

• Malay Song by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Malaria by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Mahomed Akrams Appeal To The Stars by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Love Lightly by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Lost Delight by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Listen Beloved by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Lines By Taj Mahomed by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Less Than The Dust by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Lallji My Desire by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Lalila To The Ferengi Lover by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Kotri By The River by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Khristna And His Flute by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Khan Zadas Song On The Hillside by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Kashmiri Song by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Kashmiri Song By Juma by Adela Florence Nicolson
• In The Early Pearly Morning by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Illusion by Adela Florence Nicolson
• I Shall Forget by Adela Florence Nicolson
• I Arise And Go Down To The River by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Hira Singhs Farewell To Burmah by Adela Florence Nicolson

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