Southern Fried Science

After reading some of the reviews from our Readers’ Survey, many people list these among their favorite posts, while many others consider them their least favorite. So, we’ve decided to change the posting schedule for Finding Melville’s Whale. From now on, one or two new entries will appear every Sunday, instead of Tuesdays and Thursdays. We hope you will continue reading along with us as we dive deeper in Melville’s masterpiece.

Moby Dick

By the glint of harpoon goblets, Ishmael
had sworn bloody vengeance upon the whale.
His future now belongs to Moby Dick.

A whale that terrorized the world’s oceans,
whose tremendous bulk instilled fear in all
men and marine life, even the sharks fled.

He became as god in whalemen’s legend,
ubiquitous, occupying all seas,
and immortal, no harpoon could harm him.

His great bulk, his forehead, wrinkled and white,
his deformed jaw, twisted and cruel, a scythe,
and a conscious, intelligent malice.

The were the fearsome features Ahab fought,
when from a shattered boat he pulled a blade
against the whale, in blood soaked seas, bodies,
lost comrades, swirled around him, Moby Dick,
who reached out with his reaper’s jaw and took
all that Ahab was, and also his leg.

In the throws of madness Ahab subsumed
his demons, leaving behind a monster-
filled captain, unyielding in his vengeance.

And the crew that sails with him, Savages,
Cannibals, Mongrels, broken men. Ishmael’s
oath is to this bloodthirsty endeavor.