He Said To
by Marvin Bell
crawl toward the machine guns
except to freeze
for explosions and flares.
It was still ninety degrees
at night in North Carolina,
August, rain and all.
The tracer bullets wanted
our asses, which we swore to keep
down, and the highlight
of this preposterous exercise
was finding myself in mud
and water during flares. I
hurried in the darkness–
over things and under things–
to reach the next black pool
in time, and once
I lay in the cool salve that
so suited all I had become
for two light-ups of the sky.
I took one inside and one
face of two watches I ruined
doing things like that,
and made a watch that works.
From the combat
infiltration course and
common sense, I made a man
to survive the Army, which means
that I made a man to survive
being a man.
End of the poem
15 random poems
- The French Army In Russia, 1812-13 by William Wordsworth
- Robert Burns: Home.:
- A Lady poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Beautiful Lofty Things by William Butler Yeats
- Song in the Manner of Housman poem – Ezra Pound poems
- The house where I was born (10) by Yves Bonnefoy
- Алексей Толстой – Ты не спрашивай, не распытывай
- Mahomet Ali Beg; Or, the Faithful Minister of State by William Somervile
- The Fountain by Sara Teasdale
- Sonnet 4: Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 14: Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck by William Shakespeare
- The First Extra poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Mama I’ll Sing One For You by Shel Silverstein
- Befire the Battle by Thomas Moore
- Sonnet 117: Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all by William Shakespeare
Some external links:
Duckduckgo.com – the alternative in the US
Quant.com – a search engine from France, and also an alternative, at least for Europe
Yandex – the Russian search engine (it’s probably the best search engine for image searches).