Whaler Man. Poem by Lance Mel

The whaler man of a culture long past.

Plied his harpoon from humid tropic to frigid pole,
Hemispheres both east and west he ventured to sea,
Where great privations were without limitation,
Thou exceeded these were by his own superstitions,
In the annals of the ocean it were no place to be,
But he served his time on that vast heaving sea,
From the verdant valleys of Oahu to the barren wastes of Nootka,
In pursuit and promise of whale oil commerce,
Of button'd frocks and whale bone corsets,
To fuel night lamps or scrimshaw'd artifacts.
While the Pequod and QueeQueg were but tale and fable,
Not so the tormented survivor, chief mate of the Essex,
Who witnessed the sight as that great ocean white,
The leviathan Moby Dick, Sent her below into the dark abyss,
Thus then haunted, the mariner bold sailed ever on the hunt of revenge…….
Did the whaler man of a culture long past.
L M. XXII.V.MMXV11