Iron Harp

by Fitzsimmons, Thomas

• ISBN13: 9781888809190
• ISBN10: 1888809191
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-02-01
• Publisher: LA Alameda Pr

Summary

Thomas Fitzsimmons went into World War II as an underage merchant seaman just after Pearl Harbor and was discharged from the USAAF just after Hiroshima. "Iron Harp" is a book about the memories, hard and sweet, which linger throughout a lifetime. One man's centuryfrom a depressed New England mill-town in the 1920s, through the spirit-splintering insanities of World War II, to renewal in love, and on to glimpses of grace in Japan, along the Mediterranean, and in the high desert of New Mexico. Many of these poems are poignant evocations of battle and its emotional aftermath and leave the reader shuddering as to the undeniable folly of war.

Table of Contents

Prologue
Rainbow	13	(4)
Earth
M'mere and City Hall	17	(2)
Dad	19	(2)
Mom	21	(1)
Prayer	22	(1)
Water	23	(1)
Leaving His Old Mother Slowly Going Mad	24	(1)
While the Sea Runs	25	(4)
Fire & Water
Colors in the Heart	29	(3)
The Beach at Anzio, Italy, 1944	32	(1)
The Beaches After 1945	33	(1)
Rocking Mirror	34	(1)
Birth of the One-Eyed Boy	35	(10)
The One-Eyed Boy Dreams	45	(4)
Crack Up	49	(1)
Rest & Recreation, Capri, 1945	50	(1)
The One-Eyed Boy Dreams Nails & Crosses	51	(4)
Air
The One-Eyed Boy Remembers Zero	55	(2)
The One-Eyed Boy Contemplates Salvation	57	(2)
He Questions the Mirror	59	(2)
He Considers Memory	61	(1)
He Dreams Cathedrals	62	(1)
Fencing the Sky	63	(3)
The Hand	66	(4)
temple bell	70	(3)
Epilogue
Menton: Another Perfect Day in Paradise	73