"Unsinkable"

Not a soul was stirring aboard the decadent, desolate decks as she charged, unknowing, toward me, and her doom. So, willingly she went, leaving a turbulent stream of broken water behind in her wake, following, flowing, white bubbled, like the train of a bridal gown. Indeed...it was her maiden voyage. Virginal she looked, fit and ready for sacrifice. She was ethereal and beautiful-a blushing bride boat, made up for her groom, prepared for her ravishment, on a deep ocean bed. Seeming sadly resigned, she pushed on toward her fate.

The eyes of the watchmen, as they shivered in the biting cold of the black night, glued fast to their posts, swept the horizon. They did not perceive mine as I gently broke the silvery surface and fixed my chilly gaze hard upon them.

Smothered in stillness they stood, staring out blankly, squinting as the smoke stacks added to the building of the billowing fog encircling them and it began to choke off their vision. The water gently rocked-frigid and murky, but deceptively calm in the frigid vastness which closed in, ever tighter, around them.

The silence hung all about-palpably, impossibly dense. Intangible, intransigent, interminable, it felt. It seemed to hover and surround-the very air was thick with it as it covered the water, then permeated it completely-sinking all the way down to its furthest, darkest, iciest depths.

The massive ship slid silently, steadily, seemingly seamlessly across the ocean's surface, sparkling silver as the moonlight danced along the gently rocking waves.

The boat, bathed in beams, pale in the glow, was water-kissed by ripples at its sides. All along the vessel, effervescent, softly, sea foam cascaded, broken 'bout the bow.

Decks deserted, driving determinedly, daring Death and Damnation, Poseidon, his winds, and his weather, his wrath, and his waves.

It appeared as a spectre-a fantastic phantasm, floating fleetly by. Gliding gracefully, speeding onwards she came closer. My head bobbed betwixt blocks of heavy, drifting ice as I watched them-seemingly flying-steadily on.

The captain had ordered the speed held at 22 knots before he'd retired for the night. "NY Wednesday morning-whatever the cost!"

The rest of the seamen were settled in-tucked securely in their cots. The passengers, too, were all long abed, soundly asleep aboard The Ship Of Dreams. and it was only us-the three of them, and I. They never had an inkling that aught was amiss Two watchmen and a helmsman would be my audience that night for a rare command performance. For their musical, sensual delight, a brief, fatal concert-a bittersweet serenade.

Cloaked in water and frost, glittering in the moonlight, I emerged, appealingly arranging myself upon an iceberg I had chosen for my stage. Alight with ghostly glow, I lifted my lyre, and played the first notes with my frozen fingers all aglint on the strings. Bluish-white lips parted, I started to sing a most enchanting refrain. In deeply haunting and echoing strains, with pitch painfully perfect...

The Siren's Serenade.

They scoff at tradition-

How incredibly bold!

The arrogance awakens an

Angry sea god of old.

Poseidon, aroused,

In a towering rage,

Glares at the grandeur

Of this opulent cage

The haughty far fall.

The story's oft-told.

But they sink even faster

When gilded in gold.

At sea, dreams-and lives-

Are so easily lost.

"NY Wednesday morning-

Whatever the cost!"

So swears Poseidon,

"They'll ne'er make it acrost!"

And thus am I summoned-

The Siren Of Frost.

So here I sit, casting my

Webbed net so wide,

And you will find the

Coldest of spiders inside.

Lured to the murkiest

Depths of your pain,

By the cruelest of creatures

With ice in her veins.

For, an un-christened vessel

Is an unthinkable slip!

And so sinks Titanic-

The "Unsinkable" Ship.