Coups de coeur
(Wounds to the Heart)
Cardinals at the windows see enemy
black and white newspapers turn to color
reflections or crimson hills and horses
for added effect. There’s a lot of red now, flames,
in the painting on the wall on the other side of
blasts, and plasma. On today’s front page a van ablaze,
the glass between us and them, and wound
soldiers in desert camo hauling a white-haired man,
themselves, struggling against an imaginary foe,
panting, their mouths open, they sprint,
when they run out of real opponents to fight;
two of them hurry this frail being from doom,
I want to save them from each other, save them from
children wounded by bombs, burned,
themselves, from this lust and smudge of feathers,
and a man holding his blood-soaked thigh against pulp,
limp bodies with broken necks. I pull lace
radiating from where legs have been; I want to save them,
curtains shut and they quiet, and singing, begin to gather
from each other. I want to save them from themselves,
horsehair and dry grass for their nests, to plump and to redden.
Pat Frisella, the daughter of a decorated WW II combat vet who received his medals in November of 2001, lives with rescued horses on the side of a high hill surrounded by fields and forests and watched over by one of the few remaining manned fire-towers in NH. At night she can walk up the hill to see the lights of Newington, NH some 40 miles away or stand at the window and listen to owls and coyotes. She has won prizes for her short stories, essays, and poems, most recently the Anthony Piccione Memorial "Poets For Peace" Award. Her work has been published in various literary journals and anthologies. She recently edited the anthology The Other Side of Sorrow, Poets Speak Out about Conflict, War and Peace which won the Independent Publishers Book Award bronze medal in poetry.
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Poem is used here with the permission of the poet, all rights reserved.
(Wounds to the Heart)
Cardinals at the windows see enemy
black and white newspapers turn to color
reflections or crimson hills and horses
for added effect. There’s a lot of red now, flames,
in the painting on the wall on the other side of
blasts, and plasma. On today’s front page a van ablaze,
the glass between us and them, and wound
soldiers in desert camo hauling a white-haired man,
themselves, struggling against an imaginary foe,
panting, their mouths open, they sprint,
when they run out of real opponents to fight;
two of them hurry this frail being from doom,
I want to save them from each other, save them from
children wounded by bombs, burned,
themselves, from this lust and smudge of feathers,
and a man holding his blood-soaked thigh against pulp,
limp bodies with broken necks. I pull lace
radiating from where legs have been; I want to save them,
curtains shut and they quiet, and singing, begin to gather
from each other. I want to save them from themselves,
horsehair and dry grass for their nests, to plump and to redden.
Pat Frisella, the daughter of a decorated WW II combat vet who received his medals in November of 2001, lives with rescued horses on the side of a high hill surrounded by fields and forests and watched over by one of the few remaining manned fire-towers in NH. At night she can walk up the hill to see the lights of Newington, NH some 40 miles away or stand at the window and listen to owls and coyotes. She has won prizes for her short stories, essays, and poems, most recently the Anthony Piccione Memorial "Poets For Peace" Award. Her work has been published in various literary journals and anthologies. She recently edited the anthology The Other Side of Sorrow, Poets Speak Out about Conflict, War and Peace which won the Independent Publishers Book Award bronze medal in poetry.
---------------
Poem is used here with the permission of the poet, all rights reserved.
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