My Morbid and Obese God
by John Kendall Hawkins
There are times when I'm mad as hell as Ahab
and long to punch a fat smug God smack dab in the face
but the sperm whale won't stay still long enough,
spumes of insolence, he hides among the rain clouds
and falls back in a mighty blast to the sea, and splashes the daft crew;
and I'm watching with pipe in mouth, Johnny Walker Red and the sea,
tapping my whalebone leg, in a kind of morse code paen to infinity.
I can't always be sure He's real. My harpoonists say,
Who gives a sh*t? Let's get back to shore and shibber some lady timbers.
They're long-toothed my men, they've known days without wonder,
thrown across the sea, from mighty heave to heave, starless nights
full of the curses of men lost, the captain un-ruddered, faith gone
the way of the rum, the high at first, the revelling, then the barrel empty
and the malleable souls of men shiver against fierce winds of emptiness,
seeing in the storm, the one truth, all's lost, and the tumult is forever.
And in the morning when seas cease their seething, and calm returns,
and sails are set and we head for home toward the horizon's rising sun,
there is release and we let go the glad yell of men accustomed to storms,
bringing home the bacon, as we call the furs of seals and whale blubber --
yes, they'll be oil in the lamps at home for light -- but, oh! what do I see
starboard, mean and menacing white and boiling my blood again,
but the obsession I fear, leaping from the deep with its agile morbid obesity,
gluttonous desire, oh! the eyes of my men roll, Here we go again!
in hot blooded pursuit, 'poons flying, o! that impervious whale,
the day dying slowly again, and the clouds all red and black,
and my fist is clenched yet again, and mutineer's disease hits,
the men have had enough, they twist away my leg
and toss it into the sea, and locked away in my berth, mad,
they sing chanteys all the way home, We are free!
