I doubt your dreams were disturbed by shrieks of cold
fear, the roar of water's rush through the gash; groans
of twisting iron, and exploding boilers' blasts;
then the slide under; and, last, silence---frigid
calm water, starlit.
Starward
[*/+/^]
Author's Notes/Comments:
The last line alludes to several eyewitnesses remarks about noticing the brightness of the stars that night.
The finest, and most poetic description of the disaster that I have ever heard is a speech, delivered with great intonation by the late actor, John Calicos, in the Night Gallery episode, Lone Survivor. I believe the speech, written by the inimitable Rod Serling, is legitimately and obviously a poem (although perhaps not typographically formatted as such); and, although one or two of its details has been overturned by the change in historical understanding since 1985, the poetic effect of the speech is in no way reduced or nullified.
I deliberately tried to put it from my mind while writing this poem, so as not to unworthily imitate Serling's great literary achievement.
