Two Hours Knowing Poem by Jim Boone

A Titanic opportunity to reflect
On tragedy at sea 100 years past
When the greatest ship ever finally
Tipped under the sea at 2: 20 AM
The time, precisely that I awoke
This 4/15/2012 Sunday morning.

I tried to think if this was the first
Time my muse had awakened me
And 'Yes', it was / is: 'Iceberg!
Oh my God! ! ' Big gash (!) How
Can one communicate the gravity?

In only two hours, history would
Be written and done with another
Chapter - Not knowing, for sure,
What was happening made for
Psycho-babble that would be
Short-lived and imagined forever.

Rules and laws be damned! 'Lead,
Follow or get the hell out of the way! '
'Row, row, row your boats' if you're
Fortunate enough to be in one madam,
Sir (? !) - Men and boys became heroic
Men every one, and some wonder-women
Made ancestors very proud as well.

On board, everyone was going to die and
Now they knew, but could not stop trying
To live: 'Water, water everywhere' and
Locked gates that separated the classes
Took a bath and a beating: 'Dear God,
What's that roar? ' Jumping, tossed,
Lowered, 'My God why did you forsake
Those 2200 people to a history lesson? '
What is it that we are missing here?
'Hold on! ' Just try to hold on...
'Soon it's going to tip'! They could feel it!
What was happening to that supposed
Greatest ocean-going vessel ever? Nobody
Signed on to be 'Nearer my God, to thee.'

Everyone was knowing that they were either
In a lifeboat, the ocean or going down with the
Ship literally: 'Into your hands, Lord God,
We commend our souls for You to reunite
With our spirits and history will have to shed
Our tears for us because right now we're
Just to busy being a gigantic group prayer.
'Our Father, who art in Heaven... '

'Can anyone hear me! ? ! Is anyone out there
Alive! ? ! Here's one! ! ! Here's one! ! ! !

Two thousand, two hundred souls reconnected
With their spirits and to God and Eternity as a
Heart-stopping silence falls across the shrieks
Of humanity one more historic, mind-bending
Time: 'To whom it may concern... '

I was awakened at 2: 20 AM 100-years later to
Be one of memory's witnesses and spell it out
For you and I, or it us and them? God bless
History, history-makers and all of humanity.

Amen: 4/15/2012

Jim Boone, USPL Nominee 2012