Saturday, June 17, 2006

Poem: Moby Dick

This is a poem about Moby Dick, it's from the whale's point of view. Should you be mad enough to check out my profile, you'll find an audio link to my rendition of this poem. It's not often you hear a great white whale read poetry with a Welsh accent!


MOBY DICK

I sound now, go deep; full ten fathoms under.
Your flailing stops, body chills as pressure bears.
Your fragile limbs rend as you wave a last goodbye,
My white hump, bearing your scars, carries you down.

The hunt is over and the hunter has lost.
Through oceans wide and deep we have danced.
Your hate driving frail wooden boats to my jaws,
As if you offered yourself and comrades to my wrath.

I did not seek you; nay you sought me.
Through my sea pastures, watery plains you came.
Pequod strove to undo me and for what?
Vengeance for a lost limb, oil for a guttering lamp?

Ahab, you and your kind do this world dishonour.
Thoughtless, you reap the seas as a rapist,
And we creatures of the green depths can but mourn.
But some, such as I, take bloody retribution.

Pray why did you burst your heart with hatred?
Must all Adam’s sons pile their anger on our kind?
We pitiful few beg to understand your reason
You are King in your realm; must you be so in mine?

Others can only cry hauntingly for those already lost.
As white spume foamed with heart-torn red,
We watched them die, to feed your light.
Such is the shallowness of man.

But for you, Ahab, the dance is done.
Now my sea-dwellers will feast on your scant flesh,
And as the last of your crew strikes for land,
I breach; let him see his nemesis; I am Moby Dick, fear me.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good audio rendition, Bob.

Bob Lock said...

Hiyahs Wayne,
Glad you understood it :)

Whales with a Welsh accent!

Anonymous said...

I think it`s a great poem all that description and about the pressure the end is one of the best "I am Moby Dick fear me!"

Bob Lock said...

Thanks Anonymous!
Glad you enjoyed it :)