UrbanRealist- Stand Up Stand Up
castro- thinking in the shower
a topical verse. Based on Moby Dick.
The Steering Wheel of Fate
The Steering Wheel of fate has long guided my actions
A curse laid upon me to forever follow this fashion
My path was written years ago, it was a quest for revenge
My own will I couldn’t bend, away from this grievous end
Thirty-five years in the past, the monster took my limb
My right leg torn from me and gone with the wind
I renounced the scared teachings, took a devil’s oath
To commit the strongest wrath, even if it made me ghost
The monstrous apparition’s blood would seep through my fingers
The albino whale’s spiritual visage… the memory lingers
The relentless pursuit, furious scheming is right
No amount of hate extinguish the nightmares I dream in the night
The sound of tearing flesh and blood choked screams
Wake up entangled in my bedsheets with a fear soaked gleam
My sweetheart was left behind, the wedding carriage I flee
Because I made her a widow when I married the sea
So now I turn the steering wheel, eyes fixed on the horizon
Blood lust in my vein’s, something sick in me rising
I could never know rest, from the deck to the crow’s nest
Forever glimpsing for that white whale those skin I know best
As days turned in months and months into years
I saw the grey hairs in my beard multiply and mix with tears
The arthritis in my bones continued to calcify
I gripped the wheel nonetheless, resolved to stay alive
Regardless of weakening muscles and dimming eyesight
The spark of life I had coveted, I’d never die, quite
Then on the thirty-fifth anniversary to the same hour
I looked out upon the water and saw that strange glower
There was the demon, the ghost I’d been long searching for
The killer of my home life, my body, who’d hurt me more
I dived into the nearest rowing boat with my weapon of trade
A harpoon, many whales had died who fell on this blade
And every one dead was a piece back of the life that I lost
But now the chase was on, my energy expense a furious cost
After an hour of strained tendons, weary arms and aching backs
I had the monster in my range, finally, now I’d pay him back
Even as water crept into the vessel from the strain of the waves
A storm crashing around us, the lightning lighting deep blue graves
With a thunderous voice, from the deepest caves and grazing the clouds
I made my declaration, saying it proud:
“You’ve taken thirty five years of my life forever
The love and passion of me and my wife together
I’ve tracked you obsessively ever since you crippled me
From the darkest sea’s of Africa to the coast of Italy
My entire existence has been focused on your destruction
You cost me everything, nearly even my mental functions
For all the fevered nights, pain and days living in fear
This is your judgement day! THUS I GIVE UP THE SPEAR!”
The harpoon flew true and sank deep in its flesh
And as the rowing boat sank, I too was speeded to rest
As I drowned, my heavy heart of regret weighting me down
I finally felt a sense of peace as if God was praying aloud
The wheel of fate turns full circle with a sense of dread
The only one who survived our wreck was found, missing a leg…