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 

• The most noble bird, wife by Mukeshkumar Raval by Poetry In English
• The Morning Breeze by Mousumi Guha Roy by Poetry In English
• The ME inside by Muralidharan Mudaliar by Poetry In English
• The Labour by Mousumi Guha Roy by Poetry In English
• The Drum-Stick Tree by Murali Sivaramakrishnan by Poetry In English
• the branches of pine tree by Mousumi Guha Roy by Poetry In English
• The Beyond by Muralidharan Mudaliar by Poetry In English
• Sting by Muralidharan Mudaliar by Poetry In English
• Snake Pit by Muralidharan Mudaliar by Poetry In English
• Six-Word Poem by Monty Gilmer by Poetry In English
• Rain all along by Mukeshkumar Raval by Poetry In English
• Poem by Murali Sivaramakrishnan by Poetry In English
• Poem by Murali Sivaramakrishnan by Poetry In English
• Parody on a Haiku by Issa by Monty Gilmer by Poetry In English
• No Regrets by Muralidharan Mudaliar by Poetry In English
• My Mother by Claude McKay by Poetry In English
• My impure god and I by Murali Sivaramakrishnan by Poetry In English
• My Dear Old Mother by Walter William Safar by Poetry In English
• Mother by Shahida Latif by Poetry In English
• Lost and Found by Muralidharan Mudaliar by Poetry In English

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