The Iron Coffin, Adriatic 1918

The sun has slipped beneath the Adriatic’s crest,

And we descend into a long and heavy rest.

The hull is rent, where the depth-charge found its mark,

Now we are drifting through the suffocating dark.

Beyond the steel, the giant of the deep awakes,

While every rivet in our iron coffin shakes.

I close my eyes and see the linden trees in bloom,

Far from this oily cage and this impending doom.

I see your face, my love, the sunlight in your hair.

The way you laughed when mountain salt was in the air.

You wait for letters that the tide will never bring,

While I am pulled away from life and youth and spring.

The gauge is spinning toward a line we cannot cross,

A tally-man who counts the profit and the loss.

For Emperor and Cross, we sailed beneath the foam,

But steel and pride can never lead a sailor home.

The weight of oceans gathers on our fragile shell,

A thousand fathoms down—a cold and silent hell.

You’ll walk the Alpine meadows where the gentians grow,

And wonder why the one you loved has vanished so.

No cross will mark the spot, no bugle call will sound,

Only the restless sea where broken men are found.

Your name is on my lips, a prayer against the night,

As we are swallowed up by pressure and by fright.

The "crush depth" nears; the groan of iron turns to screams,

The final hammer-blow to all our earthly dreams.

One sudden snap—the hull becomes a silver spark,

As monstrous gravity consumes us in the dark.

In one swift heartbeat, bone and blood are turned to mist,

To join the brine and currents that the moon has kissed.

The empires crumble and the flags begin to fade,

But here beneath the waves, the final price is paid.

The sea is vast and blind, indifferent to the fray,

While you are left to wait, and I am washed away.

Snowmelt on the Gross Glockner, Austria 1918

The snow has melted from the Grossglockner’s peak.

And still, I listen for the words you cannot speak.

The linden trees have heavy boughs of deepest green,

But in the village square, your face is never seen.

I keep your photograph beside the candle’s light,

And pray the Adriatic treats you well tonight.

The postman passes by our gate with heavy tread,

With letters for the living and notices of the dead.

But for the ones who vanish deep within the salt and spray,

There is no paper ghost to whisk the grief away.

They say the Kaiser’s fleet is bold and forged of steel,

But do they know the weight of dread a heart can feel?

Last night the air grew sudden, strange, and deathly still,

A phantom shiver ran across the wooded hill.

I felt a pressure on my chest, a gasping breath,

As if the very mountains shared a distant death.

Did you call out my name beneath the rolling tide? 

Or did the silence swallow up the groom and bride?

I walk the meadows where the blue gentians grow,

And watch the mountain streams toward the valleys flow.

They hurry to the sea—the place where you must be—

A world of iron grey that won't return to me.

I dream you’re standing on the deck, the sun in view.

Not lost within the crushing weight of endless blue.

For kings will trade the lives of boys like stacks of gold,

Until the fires of the world grow gray and cold.

They’ll speak of "glory" when the final bugle plays,

But won't account for all my lonely, empty days.

You are not "missing" or "a hero" in my mind--

Just part of all the love that cruel war has left behind.

The tides will ebb and flow against a foreign shore,

While I wait by the hearth and listen for the door.

The sea is vast and deep, and keeps its secrets fast,

A graveyard for the luckless brave, until the very last...

----------------------------------------------