Light
Vessel
It was a sunny Thursday afternoon,
April 14, 1919, when the Light Vessel LV-51, on relief duty, was rammed.
-
Nicholas Bellantoni
LV-51, sat calmly on the sea
anchored
to the bottom, still, a beacon,
till a
rampant Standard Oil barge
slipped
its tandem tow and rammed
the
tiny ship, putting her lights out.
She
took only minutes to sink,
hissing,
booming, whistling out of sight,
and the
crew to scramble to their lifeboat.
The
ocean smoothed over its lap
as if
nothing awkward had happened.
Charles
D. Tarlton
Charles D. Tarlton is a retired politics professor who has been
writing poetry and short prose since 2006. He lives in Old Saybrook, Connecticut
with his wife, Ann Knickerbocker, an abstract painter, and a black female
standard poodle named Nikki.
He published poetry since 2006 has appeared in Jack
Magazine, Shampoo, Review Americana, Tipton, Barnwood, Abramelin, Ink, Sweat,
and Tears, The Houston Literary Review, Simply Haiku, Haibun Today, Ink, Sweat,
and Tears, Atlas Poetica, Contemporary Haibun Online, Blue and Yellow Dog, Shot
Glass, Sketchbook, Skylark, Six Minute Magazine, Cricket Online Review, Red
Booth Review, Linden Avenue Literary Journal, Rattle, Dark Matter, Muse India,
Inner Art Journal, Prune Juice, Ekphrastic Review, Blackbox Manifold (UK),
Undertow Tanka Review, Spirit Wind Gallery, Randomly Accessed Poetics, Ribbons,
Unbroken Journal, KYSO Flash, Ekphrastic Review, tinywords, Red Lights, The
Journal (UK), Tallow Eider Quarterly, The American Aesthetic, London Grip, Book
Ends Review, Ilanot Review, Clackamas Literary Review,
Peacock Journal, Innisfree Poetry Journal, Nebo, and Palette.