Starbuck’s Lament

Brothers under the whip, I hear your howls.
They make the salt Atlantic shiver
And surge with cold rage, heaving
In sullen swells without crest.
I have felt every laceration
And lash that fell on flesh,
Cropping a wealth of welts
On the fair fields of your backs.
I have witnessed and winced at every blow
Meted out by this mad captain
On his hateful hunt
To vanquish nature’s monster.
Your pain has been slow-hammered
On the forge of daily abuse.
You have bent but not broke,
The raw ore of your anger
Smithied and tempered
Into something bright and edged.
I gaze into the flat
Of the many gleaming swords
And see my face mirrored,
A snarl hungry for retribution
For the blood of despots,
For the peeled skull
Of Ahab.

None here wants this quixotic dolt
Dead as much as I.
I! I! Starbuck, anchor of the Pequod!
I who steer the ship through
All the Captain’s impossible weathers.
Often on your behalf
I have reasoned with the tempest,
Placing myself between switch and sailor.
“How serves a crippled crew?”
“What profit in vengeance?”
“He is but a child!”
There is a quiet that comes
Only when the mind is spent
From too much rage.
In that silence appear
Ideas strange and luring.

Let me share a secret, my shame:
In my pocket, a musket ball I used to keep
Which I christened “Grudge.”
When crew failed to keep some trivial command
And Ahab blustered severity beyond reason,
Then I felt my soul frayed to ragged threads,
And I rubbed my Grudge to a shine.
With each fresh outrage
I polished my talisman
Until it black-sparkled like a comet in the void.
I don’t remember the banal brutality
Which catalyzed me into action.
Forgive me, there were so many!
I only remember my spine was a rod of anguish,
My nerves a livid, flaming tree
Of Indignation.
My hands took from the rack the rifle
And into its gaping maw
Dropped the ball, my luminous Grudge.

Understand, I made no choice in this;
I was a mere watcher
As my over-pricked animal body
Sought its prey, easily found, Ahab asleep,
In sheets worth half of Egypt.
It was not I who raised the barrel,
Nor I who drew a bead on the sleeper’s skull
Nor I who tapped and tested the trigger.
This was the rhythm of the universe
Balancing the scales.

One squeeze of my finger —
That’s how close I was to falling
Into the abyss.
Ahab — you are my White Whale,
My Möbius that twists outside in,
Inside out, and
Victim into villain.
The injuries you inflicted
Festered within my spirit, grew rank,
Until I became feral creature,
A serpent who sees the world
through red, resentful eyes,
And bides its days on sea beds waiting
To swallow ships whole.

Christ wore a woven ring of thorns
But never did he curse the pricks
who crowned him.
His side was poked and piked,
But never did he raise his voice,
Or spear.
Iron nails pierced his wrists,
But never did hands make fists,
Or war.
Christ was a carpenter
Betrayed by carpenters,
who hewed his cross
For profit,
But He let all human anger bleed out.
A horse that’s hard-rode and spurred-sore,
Will anon bite, buck and turn
Its hooves on the rider,
But not our Christ of the many wounds.
He chose to break the loop.
And so did I.
My Grudge I dropped to the ocean floor.

You, my mates, my brethren in injustice
Your hands — meant for work — now hold swords
That have not yet carved wrack and ruin
In the ledger of your souls.
You stand on the same precipice
As once did I.
You can surrender to malice
Let the swords wield you,
And watch from afar as you
Become little Ahabs
Whose tombstone reads
“He Gave Tit for Tat.”

You have suffered nameless indignities;
You chafe and groan and sweat,
So your lord can swig sweet
Chianti with his meat;
You are the clever slave
Who builds his master
A better set of manacles.
Your minds can envision cathedrals
And your hands can build them,
But you are forbade entry.
Something beyond the ken of Man
is off-kilter on Earth.
On a crooked axis, this globe spins
But each revolution
Brings more violence to the wobble;
And those who try to uncrook it
Make topple the world.

This life is brief, but
Eternity beckons.
Leave earthly vendetta here
And reckon on heaven.

Thankfully, thankless Christ
Has blazed a shining path.
Bury your blades in the brine
And trust the judgment of His sword;
Wear the stripes of suffering,
That brand you brothers to the divine.
Let the miser hoard gold and bread,
While you make lean bank in heaven.
Keep a steady hand on the rudder,
As we skim towards God’s audit,
The great and final tally
Of our sins.
Forfeit your wages and serve
The one true Sovereign
Who will hold poor Ahab to account.
Your rage is dross
That weighs you down.
Leave it here; let it drown!
Those unruly few, the fools
Who tilt and tip this ship,
Forever doom us all
To the devils down-below.
A paradise above is yours to seek
If you have courage to stay meek.
Those who crave war,
But sue for peace,
Are the trim and true vessels of God.
My fellows — my heart burns as yours —
We must journey in silence a bit farther
Labour a little longer
Before we reach the last destination.
Hold vigil for the status quo;
Stay good sailors on his good ship
Until the pilot of the golden city
Guides our sloop to port.

Starbuck here ended his lament.
The sailors grumbled but grabbed
Their heavy tackle,
Jibbed into the wind,
Licked salt and sang sullen ditties,
Steering the Pequod straight
Towards the white whale
And their pointless deaths.

🐋

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