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
- If you should tire of loving me by Margaret Widdemer
- His Pilgrimage by Sir Walter Raleigh
- Константин Батюшков – Мои пенаты
- Projector by Shreekumar Varma
- To The Rev. Mr. Newton, On His Return From Ramsgate by William Cowper
- Epistle to Colonel de Peyster by Robert Burns
- Madonna poem – Alfred Austin
- Валерий Брюсов – Петербург (Здесь снов не ваял Сансовино)
- The Ballad of East and West by Rudyard Kipling
- Harp Song of the Dane Women by Rudyard Kipling
- Robert Burns: O That’s The Lassie O’ My Heart :
- The Quesion by Rudyard Kipling
- Ольга Берггольц – Озерный край
- Bond and Free by Robert Frost
- Ma Wonders by Miraj Patel
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).