Titanic, Second Time Around

April Friday, one in the morning, stars are floating in the cold black river. They only shine upward, so you can't see the bottom, the midnight sand that never knows light. Water and starshine conspire to fool you, make you think that you're wading when when your feet can't find earth....


Cold sharp sea shells that roll in the breakers, ocean glass worn smooth on the sand. Green beer bottles sinking down to the sand dunes where the shipwrecks are sleeping and the passengers dream....the Captain swears, it wasn't his fault, but then he retreats to the bridge as the windows cave in....

Haiku For Titanic, One Hundred Years Later

Clean cold salt water
Washing my poor eyes tonight.
God, let me sleep, please?

January 1, 1984

The light from the street lamp outside leaking through your match stick blinds, reflecting in your brown eyes, two deep auburn candles and your arm around my shoulder. We were used up, anything more was beyond us. Your candle burned on, but your breath was finally slowing, and you whispered in my ear, "That was totally unexpected, and totally pleasurable!"

And Christine was sound asleep in my bedroom, just ten feet below us.

And I've never regretted one second of that night....

Almost One Hundred Years

Life is drifting down in slow white flakes, coasting the miles under the sea, white hot compared to the cold black iron lying on the undersea mountainside. All is quiet now, where the windows on the bridge caved in, where the hungry ghosts in gowns and tuxedos danced to the ragtime rhythms while the hold filled with water and the children looked toward heaven, where I pray that the hand of the ocean sands off the name from the life boats.... I can't ever read that name again without seeing Mr. Guggenheim dead, and Mr. Astor dead, and Ms. Brown barely alive, having broken the curse. Let the sun dry you, flames burning the roof of the tunnel,white canvas jackets bleached under springtime sun...