Melville in Bondage

"Oh, devilish tantalization of the Gods!"
Fayeaway, the sea and the faraway islands
And spice
Still tugged at the man who labored
At the Custom House desk.
The damnable drudgery was just a bone
Of existance
That had been flung his way
By a contemptuous government.
He!
Who should be leading expeditions
Into the impenatrable
Dogma-shrouded jungle of thought
That had grown to mask
The inscrutable Almighty's intent!
Prometheus-bound by import forms
And cargo manifests
While drums in the darkness
Pound the message of his failure.

Passion-fruit and pineapples
Plucked from a South-Sea paradise.
All had to be recorded
Like one's sins in the Book of Life.
"To produce a mighty book
You must choose a mighty theme."
Here he was
Scratching entries onto a cargo ledger,
Shackled to wage-slave monotony,
Enduring serfdom to "free" himself
From dependence on his wife's family's income.
They assure him that this job will help him
To evade the clutch of madness
That had entered his life once
And had wrested his father from him.
It buys him respect and honor
In the eyes of the world
While his lance lays abandoned
In the inkwell in his study.

He'd hurled it in anger
At an image of a great white whale;
Paradise Lost rebellion
Seasoned with the madness of Lear.
"A book broiled in hellfire."
Ishmael, Ahab, Elijah and Rachel;
Old Testament allusions rained
From his pen like a baptism
Exploding from the coat
Of a vigorously shaking dog.
It had just come bounding in
From a cold New England brook
With a stick of diabolical truth
Clamped tightly in its teeth.
"From hell's heart I stab at thee,"
He growled, unwilling to let go
Of his treasure.  "For hate's sake
I spit my last breath at thee."
He'd railed at the world
And at its architect of injustices.

"Talk not to me of blasphemy, Man!"
He again raged angrily,
Feeling landlocked and deskbound.
"I'd strike at the Sun if it insulted me.!"
And an insult it was too
To have to sullenly endure the curses
Of sea captains.

"Hey Melville! Get off your ass
And check us in!
My boys have been round the Horn
To Hell and back!
Now all we want is to be logged off
This floating coffin!
Hustle over here, dammit!"

Yea, to endure a damp, drizzly
November of the soul in this place,
With a world of adventure,
The seven seas and exotic ports
Beckoning just beyond the horizon
Was just too much to bear.
Was his family worth it?
His wife?
His children?

Was anything?

He wrote "NO!" in thunder,
Then shrugged and bent over his ledger.
He had pretty much made up his mind
To be annihilated.