Revisiting Antietam
How odd imagining war’s artistic tint,
where tactics clashing let men’s captive blood.
Just look—the paradox of bodies rent,
yet jaunty at this portrait streaked with mud!
It’s strange to visit battlefields with joy
that motions me as sunshine permeates
when poised-to-tussle soldiers were just boys
awestruck by spiraling bursts, which teased in spates.
You’re wrong if you’d believe that I’m as daring
as them when I power through a cloud of flies
encircling on the Sunken Road, and bearing
thoughts of their woes, I almost paused to cry.
Quick-stepping time scours to reveal raw scenes,
and having climbed the observation tower,
I contemplate the ridges, woods, and lean,
long-standing farms, but then my mood runs sour.
Another tourist eyes me skedaddling down
the stairs—a yellowjacket drives my dread.
Contrast this with those boys who trooped the ground.
Receiving fashioned stings, they slumped down dead.
Christopher Fried (b. 1985) lives in Richmond, VA and works as an ocean shipping logistics analyst. He has published a novel and two books of poetry, including the recently published Analog Synthesis (2025) by Kelsay Books.
Christopher, this is amazing. I used to live near Yorktown, and with fellow military at the time, would play on the field, thinking nothing of the battle. You are there, in and out of Antietam’s battle day and associated feelings as your mind and thoughts run restlessly through time and places where 20,000 men died. Your spiraling word choices and sunken sentences make the emotions flow, and I too can say, “I almost paused to cry.” Then you swerve to a contemporary tourist perspective, that seems to draw back in horror, or in self-protective unconcern, as it watches multitudes slump dead. The rhythm of the poem is just irregular enough to be verse and military motion over unfamiliar grounds at once. Excellent scene painting with palpable tension to the end.
The poignant black humour at the end, contrasting a tourist being chased by a yellow jacket with men no more than boys being down down by bullets is a fitting end to this vivid war poem.
There is certainly something strange driving Humankind to wage wars, but still respond to the innate animal fears to which we are still susceptible. Sure, a hornet isn’t the same kind of threat as those on a battlefield, but it re-awakens something in us from prehistory that makes us jump all the same. I have to wonder if those soldiers would not have been bothered by something like a hornet, and if that fear is on some other level separate from those felt in a warzone.
I feel like the meter throughout this poem reflects the wheels of cannons rolled over the fields at Antietam, with a solid destination in mind over rough terrain. I really enjoyed this poem.
The “Civil War” is a contradiction of terms, and I am not a fan of reenactments.
Our history, portrayed on the battlefield, where bravery was met with loss; today the presence of a yellow jacket has the ‘not so brave’ running. You have beautifully exposed truth!