Perhaps In future times

Creative pieces inspired by Herman Melville's Moby Dick.

[tidalgreen-blog]

Inspired by Chapter 116 The Dying Whale

In this chapter, Ahab sits alone in a boat and disrespects the hell of a whale   speaks to a dying whale. I got hung up on this passage and Ahab’s seemingly rude tone for a while, so much so that I had a bit of a waking dream about it. I imagined myself forcing my way into the fiction of Moby Dick and this specific chapter, and confronting Ahab himself about this. This is the product:

“I ask that solemn sailor if he has forgone common courtesy; if he has taken to speaking ill of the dead as he does. I imagine, sitting with this offending prosecutor in his wooden vessel, and the aftermath of these spearings upon this sunset sea-sky, his creator answers: To waste words on those who cannot hear? No. Never. These words occur in present tense. The whale dies in present tense. It can bare to know its futility and so it shall. The sailor is unaware of the voice speaking through him and is unaware when he recedes.”

“Never argue the light is in the way of dying, I beg. Never mind the light will never know this language. Yes, the ouroboros has not yet devoured its neck, but why have you the heart to tell him that his hunger results in his own destruction? Fine, I resign. Do not speak ill of the dying. These words occur in present tense. My heart breaks in present tense. I know of a futility too.”

“That sailor told the light it dies in vain. That sailor, too, will die in vain. Attempts to break a wall of reality are in vain. Calls to an unjust God are in vain. Throwing oneself upon a sword is an act in vain. Sailing away from these damp, drizzly Novembers is too in vain.”

[tidalgreen-blog]

Mist.

“And how nobly it raises our conceit of the mighty, misty monster, to behold him solemnly sailing through a calm tropical sea; his vast, mild head overhung by a canopy of vapor, engendered by his incommunicable contemplations, and that vapor- as you will sometimes see it- glorified by a rainbow, as if Heaven itself had put its seal upon his thoughts.” - Herman Melville, Moby Dick (Ch. 85, The Fountain)

In this chapter, Ishmael ponders the mechanics of the whale’s spout, concluding that the phenomenon is not exclusively air or water, but rather both. In light of this, I wed human and whale anatomy together, using three separate texts as the basis for this erasure poem.

I. Excerpt from Ch. 85, The Fountain, Herman Melville II. Photo - Vintage anatomical illustration of the Lungs, 1947 III. Definition - Mist

Like a human being’s, the whale can only live by inhaling.

In this picture the front wall has been removed,

the two lungs and their connections dividing into two.

he cannot in any degree breathe.

In his attitude, buried, no connexion with his mouth,

He breathes through his spiracle alone.

Breathing is only a function indispensable to vitality.

The left reveals the tube dividing, ending in the cells.

The right is to be divided into three parts.

Live without breathing,

The great lung artery and veins.

Anomalous, the case with the whale.

A thousand fathoms of vitality in him,

this labyrinth is indisputable;

What left are fine droplets of water in the atmosphere near, in contact with the earth.

[blackestdespondency]

Men believe themselves to be free simply because they are conscious of their own actions, knowing nothing of the causes by which they are determined.

Benedict Spinoza (via blackestdespondency)

[tidalgreen-blog]

· coping mechanisms · excerpt ·

"Because a laugh’s the wisest, easiest answer to all that’s queer; and come what will, one comfort’s always left- that unfailing comfort is, it’s all predestinated." - Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Why do you laugh, she asked. Her arms crossed over her torso with a lacking that suited her expressionless gaze. Silas himself grinned, setting the touchpad aside.

“Do you not understand humor, ensign?” He leaned himself against the panel, its beeping and flickering growing steady.

“Nothing particularly humorous has occurred.” She looked unsure, whether of herself or of her current situation he could not tell. He laughed again, shaking his head with each sputter.

“I disagree.” He said once he gained composure.  Something wholeheartedly, genuinely humorous has happened… is happening. ” His eyes lit up when he offered his correction, a stronger smile blossoming across his lips.

The girl stood unmoving.

“You don’t find this situation we’re in funny?” He asked, pushing away from the panel. He stepped towards her. “Everything, everything event and all its details has been set up for this to happen. It has always been so, and no one was the wiser. Months ago you must have sat at the academy, staring with those exuberant eyes of yours, dreaming of what you could not have possibly known to be your and my untimely deaths. And it’s funny because certainty is laughing. Certainty knew it was coming, knew it was coming for centuries,  millennia, eons, and it’s been laughing since. It reads us with a sort of dramatic irony, rolling its eyes and clutching its sides, watching us eat our breakfasts and make our plans and carry out our endeavors, thinking that we know what is happening. And I laugh because I can hear it laughing and it’s a contagious laugh, it is.” He paused, and after a moment added, It’s like a baby.”

“You’re delirious.” She said.  

“I…” he began. “Think we should get hammered. Yes. Yes, of course. I can never be so sure. But damn, I can free myself. Yes.”

[1st-1]

as above so below  [submission ]

[gornergrat]

Bridger Canyon by night