The Procedure

Look up from your blueprints,

squint into the night.

Make out a mountain of ice.

Continue to play bridge.

When a tense minute has passed,

pull the engine-room telegraph handle

all the way to ‘Stop’

and as the grinding noise dies away

close the emergency doors.

Methodically don underwear, long stockings,

shoes, trousers, a Norfolk jacket –

or throw an overcoat over your pyjamas.

Now go back to your cabin to read,

taking a piece of ice as a souvenir –

about the size of a pocketwatch should do.

When the sea is up to your ankles,

joke about the soaked baggage – wonder aloud

what is in the letters you see floating

around the abandoned mail room.

If caught behind a watertight door,

scramble up the escape ladders

that lace their way topside.

Shut the dampers. Draw the fires.

When the lights go out in boiler room no.5,

go aft for lanterns.

Drag your bed to the recreation deck.

Stuff your pockets with books, a revolver

and a compass.

The heavy silence of deserted rooms

has a drama all of its own.

Be awake where they expect to find you

and know that you have struck something.

Commentary:

This is a poem from School of Forgery and, typically of poems in that book, it is heavily indebted to source texts – in this case, various accounts of the sinking of R.M.S Titanic recounted in A Night to Remember by Walter Lord. ‘The Procedure’ amalgamates these recollections into one compound perspective, and reorientates them as instructions for a future event.

 

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