The Iceberg Was There First

I wonder what it looks like from below in the icy liquid gloom Our legs flying, invisible bicycle spinning, arms turning Keeping only barely above the water, our ears and chins dripping Our hearts pounding, perhaps like the creatures below, wondering if this is supper at last? The sea is cold and numbs the pain, and slows the blood, a curdle Hurdy gurdy roundabout dance, circles and whirlpools so many As one by one, faces we know so well, vanish quick As the water gets even colder, and the friends we once had, disappear. The ship is almost gone now, I can just see the stern, tilted Bubbles and pieces of the dance floor fight to the surface While we, the few remaining very few, do the same, but only some with success As shapes, dark as the water below, circle and rise and kill, Before the water can. Ice blocks rattled in glasses not so log ago, crystals and gin There were various reasons for the celebration, but the end is all the same We had eaten well, and danced even more, and better It is now time for others to feed, on our chilling bodies and bones. I see the ship is gone now, And bubbles rise with fragments of flesh, A memory lingers on in the minds of those who so frozen survive Any wreckage is a lifeboat secure, a few more moments, an hour As we see the sun rise on the ice block in pink gin So white, so cold, so blue. ( Long before the Titanic was popular in print and movies, I wrote this in 1986, after reading a book about the event... )