The Final Seconds

A Shipwreck Poem by Bob Hampton

For forty years and more his soul
Has roamed the rusted decks,
In the deep lagoon at Kwajalein
His fate is on the wrecks.

And there he'll roam for years to come...
For all eternity.
He knows that years ago he lost
His chance at being free.

He knows his bones will never reach
His Japanese homeland,
He sees them crumble in the sea
And drift away as sand.

And I've been there on stormy nights, with fathoms over me.
Down his corridors of gloom at the bottom of the sea.

Where death prolongs the muffled screams and fears that came to bear.
Those final seconds never pass... I feel his presence there,

Remembering flyers that came from above,
Whose thunder crossed his way,
When sanctums filled with rushing tides
In the final, frothy melee.

But now throughout his shattered mind
The blue Pacific flows,
And isolates from storms above
The silence that he knows.

And I've been there on stormy nights, in the blackness of the sea,
Deep in his sunken ships of doom where feelings flow to me.

Where time contains the broken dreams and death that came to bear.
Those final seconds never pass... They're always waiting there.