Eleven, by Eamon O’Caoineachan

Eleven, by Jason Kimes (USA) contemporary. Click on image for artist site.

11

ELEVEN
rust-red American
crewmen stand eternal
in a blue-collar
circle

ELEVEN
 lives rigged on concrete
 steel platforms, the drilling 
rig was rigged too by
the wellhead

ELEVEN
hours moneymen  
argued money, money sealed 
the fallen crewmen
—steel on stone
  
ELEVEN 
figures welded from
doubloon-steel discs, the sculptor 
shapes the sculpture as wind 
shapes swell

ELEVEN
look out not in— 
their eternal gaze calls outward
in one uniform
circle

ELEVEN 
good men bore under 
a bad star, drilled the source 
rock, spilled under the   
iron waves                

ELEVEN 
crewmen stood 
 tall on Elysian Fields 
Ave. before being 
displaced
​
 ELEVEN 
moved to another 
Elysian Field, they rest west
of St. Rose, you 
will find

ELEVEN 
hidden for a more 
private view, out of public sight 
—Everyman carved 
in mind

ELEVEN
stand in a blue-collar 
circle—no matter where 
you stand, they are 
facing you

ELEVEN 
rust-red American 
crewmen—no matter where
you look, they are 
facing you

​

Eamon O’Caoineachan

This poem is from Eamon's collection, Dolphin Ghosts, poetry inspired by the work of Jason Kimes, and the Deepwater Horizon disaster eleven years ago. Click here to view or purchase book.
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Eamon O’Caoineachan is a poet, originally from Co. Donegal, Ireland, but living in Houston, Texas. His work is published in Prometheus Dreaming, The Ekphrastic Review, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Madness Muse Press, Vita Brevis Press and the University of St. Thomas's literary magazines, Thoroughfare and Laurels. He is the recipient of The Robert Lee Frost-Vince D’Amico Poetry Award and the Rev. Edward A. Lee Endowed Scholarship in English at the University of St. Thomas, Houston. He has his Master in Liberal Arts in English and his first poetry collection, Dolphin Ghosts was published in Spring 2021.