Moby Dick

As the bitter winter gales creep through the stone and brick

I settle in to once again try reading Moby Dick.

In college I was told this book was greatest in the land

And reading it my intellect would suddenly expand.

I'm always up for something that will stimulate my brain

And keep it from just twirling round like some mute weathervane .

"Call me Ishmael" it begins; so far so good, I say.

The book continues with a ship that sails on Christmas day.

Captain Ahab is the man who brings aboard a crew

Whose job description is "one whale, relentlessly pursue".

This Ahab guy is not the type I'd want as supervisor;

He acts like God and Moses and has manners like the Kaiser.

Struck by lightening, with a leg chewed off by that pale whale,

The Captain's hold on common sense is really pretty frail.

There's cannibals and storms at sea and good exciting stuff,

But then the metaphysics makes the sailing pretty rough.

Melville throws in gobs of thoughts on life and death and such

And I begin to yearn for chips from bags marked as Old Dutch.

When the prose turns muddy with profound philosophy

I wonder what I'm missing on my little old TV.

But still I soldier on through chapters full of dialogue

That I suspect poor Melville wrote while drinking too much grog.

I'm halfway through the book when I do give up with a sigh;

His prose gives me a headache, is my only alibi.

And so the big thick book I put back in the cardboard box

Where it sits with chess pieces and mismatched woolen socks.

To assuage my conscience I will watch the movie version

Where Richard Basehart takes us on a nautical excursion

And Mr. Peck, the movie star, plays Captain Ahab well,

Madder than a hatter on the ocean's ceaseless swell.

I guess I will not widen my horizons for today

As I wonder if Pat Sajac uses a toupee.

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