February 2018
Arthur Mortensen
arthur505@earthlink.net
arthur505@earthlink.net
A corporate transfer brat in childhood, with frequent moves, I’ve lived in Brooklyn for thirty years with my spouse, the painter Liz Holly. We occasionally collaborate. Between projects, I’m Webmaster of expansivepoetryonline.com, a site devoted to narrative and formal poetry. I ran Somers Rocks Press during its run of 23 critically selected first collections. Pivot Press, another venture, published a dozen books. (Both presses are closed). I’ve three books, two of which are parts of the same story (A Disciple After the Fact, and A Life in the Theater). My poems have appeared in a variety of journals.
Sea Story
A lookout has no value in a fog.
The Maurice Banyon occupied a space
Between what might be forward and what lay
Astern. Radar and sonar worked their magic;
The crew and officers were unconcerned
Their midnight watches would be interrupted.
A deck hand saw it first, and leaned against
The fo'c'sle’s rail to look, but didn’t speak.
A trireme from this soup was unexpected,
But, in a moment, others left their posts
To stare, their inhibitions loosed by crowding.
Soon, the freighter’s complement stood pointing
And shouting, watching as banks of oars were dipped
And pulled, an orderly succession. Then,
The ancient vessel vanished in the mist.
No one aboard the Roman looked at them.
No word of Latin, Greek, nor any tongue
Was spoken -- beats to synchronize the banks
Of oars the only sound. The fog closed in
To seal the wound in time. The crew went silent.
Upon the bridge, the duty officer
Returned to look again upon his plot.
The ghost’s passage had not affected that.
The GPS confirmed position, speed,
While effluorescent plankton marked their wake.
from the upcoming book After the Crash
A lookout has no value in a fog.
The Maurice Banyon occupied a space
Between what might be forward and what lay
Astern. Radar and sonar worked their magic;
The crew and officers were unconcerned
Their midnight watches would be interrupted.
A deck hand saw it first, and leaned against
The fo'c'sle’s rail to look, but didn’t speak.
A trireme from this soup was unexpected,
But, in a moment, others left their posts
To stare, their inhibitions loosed by crowding.
Soon, the freighter’s complement stood pointing
And shouting, watching as banks of oars were dipped
And pulled, an orderly succession. Then,
The ancient vessel vanished in the mist.
No one aboard the Roman looked at them.
No word of Latin, Greek, nor any tongue
Was spoken -- beats to synchronize the banks
Of oars the only sound. The fog closed in
To seal the wound in time. The crew went silent.
Upon the bridge, the duty officer
Returned to look again upon his plot.
The ghost’s passage had not affected that.
The GPS confirmed position, speed,
While effluorescent plankton marked their wake.
from the upcoming book After the Crash
©2018 Arthur Mortensen
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