Long White whale Poems
Long White whale Poems. Below are the most popular long White whale by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long White whale poems by poem length and keyword.
As I’m driving down the street in Brentwood,
Nashville’s richest neighborhood,
The police pull me over, oh it’s still a common occurrence,
I can hear the sirens and the lights flash on in cadence,
Oh it’s usually something small, like I didn’t fully stop at a stop sign,
Or my registration’s expired just a day or two over the deadline,
And really, it’s kind of funny so I’m starting not to mind,
But in this rhyme, I’m hoping that maybe just one time,
The cops would just be honest and say something like this,
“Oh man in the 91 Camry, don’t you realize”
“That we have to pull you over, I mean we just can’t help it!”
“Your 91 Camry screams to our souls, like the white whale screamed to Ahab”
“It stands out and calls to us, like sirens in the night”
“And our urge to pull you over we just simply cannot fight”
“And so dear man, we’re sorry, but until you can invest”
“In a nicer car with brake lights that cause us much less stress”
“Then we must, we must, we mean we have to, and we really have no choice”
“But to pull you over, maybe search your car, and really really rejoice”
“That we kept the gated highways of Brentwood forever free!”
“From the ever bleeding eyesore of your 91 Camry!”
Pale moon lights up the night sea surfaces
To smile wide on the horizon shimmering with the waves
Takes a drink then sinks ten thousand leagues
Down with the giant white whale who becomes minute
Consumed by the world wide oceans blue
Depths that crush the soul of soldiers lost in history
By bygone wars that leave their remains beneath the waves
Spread out like so much ocean matter graves
Pale moon light penetrates that under world
Where colors become deformed, fractured dim
Twisting with the neon squid in a labyrinthine-in swim
Around the sea bed rocks hidden in murky gray
They pray for any kind of light to see the truth
Pale moon comes through
Meet the mad, manic, Mister Murgatroyd
An undynamic blistered humanoid
A curred curmudgeon you don't want to meet
In a bar, back alley, or dead end street
He's a filthy, flagrant, flatulent fart
Sewer rat mind and tarantula heart
Cleaves cuddly kittens, feeds them to guppies
Pet pranks the pet shop, punting the puppies
He's our white whale and our snake in the grass
A demon from hell, one pain in the ass
His black, rotten heart's beyond all belief
We need good karma to offer relief
Slurp burping some soup, soup wouldn't swallow
Burp slurping for breath, death would soon follow
A lone chicken bone was lodged in his throat
His face had changed tone and started to bloat
No one there for the Heimlich maneuver
Cuz no one cared from here to Vancouver
No smelling salts would be administered
No certificate of death was registered
They scrambled his brains to stop his last twitch
Then scraped his remains, dropped him in a ditch
A soulless soul and one sorry old sot
Heavens to Murgatroyd?... Heaven thinks not!
Covered Dishes
2
Into the tattooed tavern
we sauntered dreamily,
squinting our delirious eyes, while
blinking rapidly, and flinching from
the electronic glare of spit-polished mirrors,
shining as an insane sun would,
without reflection, without resonance,
hanging on a purple breast, extending out
like a promontory of covered platters and purple dishes;
and there were young girls present
wearing the costumes of the naked,
seeking to dance in the germ puddles,
with waxed earbuds donned,
and eyes scanning
for blue jean bulges, a promise, and a ring.
Instead, they find the Shadow,
pulsating wildly under the neon cocktail
that oozes desperation;
they crisscross the floor, only
to find more phony friends, and traipsing ghosts
that hurry away, never looking, never listening.
“Ah, miss, may I buy you a white whale?
Certainly I can afford to buy you
a moment of pointless romance.”
But she doesn’t perceive the wondrous latitude,
of that amazing moment in time,
this hollowed babe in black heels,
just staring point blank into my eyes.
Waiting for the nod,
the supreme tilt to aggrandizement!
At last it arrives, as autumn sensibly arrives,
and the truth can be seen.
“I would kiss you now, miss,
here under this humming cocktail sign,
that glows its neon blood
upon your open lips. But
Death wants another drink. Look.
It’s waiting down the bar a ways.
It’s staring at you with mouth decidedly open;
It wants your blood in a beer glass,
with your sea-sodden tears in a chaser.”
Poetry will not keep you warm
Not like a cat nestled between legs
But, it hunts down manic thoughts
Gnashes the static till the mind gives
Chases a thought till claws are bloody
Keeps you drenched in sweat
Yes, she mews for attention
Till its cries grate every nerve
Till I feed it words & want
Poetry keeps me squirming
Caught in a net skimming a deluge
Waiting for words to be hauled
The big catch ever escaping
Keeps me checking the line
Insisting I jump into cold waters
Foolishly like Ahab chasing a tail
Sadness is my white whale
Mad with promises holey
Poetry is a leaky bucket
Catching the rain of words
Within depression's storm
Coming like a cat with a pail
Impossible and torrential
Ensnaring me for an hour
Keeps me back for seconds
Promising an easy catch
Cold and slippery
To unknown shores, I have now come,
to seek my fate, if I have one.
Not found at home, where was before,
I have now come to unknown shores.
Through salty sea, through storm and wind;
I've been to hell and back again.
I'll find my fate, where'er she be,
through storm and wind, through salty sea.
Oh! There she blows! My ship's white whale!
Raise the anchor and set the sails;
And if that fails then I will row…
My ship's white whale, Oh! There she blows!
Finally home; heroic tale:
Not seeking still through stormy gale.
'Round the fire and not alone…
Heroic tale; finally home.
John Lewis said Good Trouble’s
Needed when actions aren’t fair
When justice is denied,
And life deals more than we can bear,
When the folks who own the power
Pretend they listen but don’t care
When our leaders choose to dismiss
Our “it’s time for equality” prayers
So they can maintain a racial abyss
That’s when we need to make Good Trouble.
To achieve what must be done
You can’t turn the world to rubble
We learned peaceful is the best way
So we got into Good Trouble.
We sat in when justice demanded
To bring inequity to the fore
Just as we sat at lunch counters
So many times before
We walked across a bridge
As part of a righteous Corps
Seeking what we had a right to
Nothing less but nothing more
And when it was needed
We sat in Congress on the floor
Cause we needed to create Good Trouble
To achieve what must be done
You can’t turn the world to rubble
We learned peaceful is the best way
So we got into Good Trouble.
When we cried out you need to listen
And the response was throwing us in jail
We sat there praying they’d hear us
We refused to have our efforts fail,
And time after time we sat in
The belly of the great White whale
That’s when we needed to make Good Trouble.
When change was needed
But not forthcoming, we said
Justice is needed on the double,
And when they yelled their taunts
And said we weren’t worthy
We sought to burst their bubble
We took the worst they had
Their curses and their beatings
As we created Good Trouble.
To achieve what must be done
You can’t turn the world to rubble
We learned peace is the best way
So we got into Good Trouble.
Yarns Of A Seafaress
Hemingway's famous "Old Man and the Sea"
Simply couldn't hold a candle to me
I caught Ahab's great white whale
Did some surfing on his tail
Made him jump through hoops 'fore I set him free
In Scotland I gave Nessie a big scare
As with my huge net, the beast I did snare
I held on as Nessie tugged
Then set her free as I shrugged
To tell the truth, Nessie hadn't a prayer
And now I've set my sights on the Kraken
Oh yes, I'm more than a fishing bumpkin
And so for Norway I sail
To prove women aren't frail
This giant squid is simply a munchkin
This wonderful poem epitomizes Carolyn's love for everything about the sea.
She has so creatively and entertainly regaled us with her delightful writes based on
her own personal sea adventures that have become and will remain classics.
I can picture Carolyn standing on the prow of a boat, her hair streaming in the wind,
as it charges full steam ahead as she seeks further swashbuckling challenges beyond
the horizon. She has been a supporter and encourager to me not only in poetic matters but personal matters as well. I pray that her well of verse will never run dry!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
“Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early” – Gordon Lightfoot, Canadian Balladeer,
from The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald
A song by Gordon Lightfoot I would hear
in 1976, my newborn daughter’s year.
S S Edmund Fitgerald was the ship,
and Lightfoot’s song described its final trip.
I thought that Lightfoot had made up the tale,
like Melville did about a great white whale!
Not having heard the news of it before,
I’d taken the song’s lyrics as semi-ancient lore!
Since having learned the truth, to my surprise,
one year before was that poor ship’s demise!
The ship was wrecked in 1975,
and not one man on board was able to survive.
The night it wrecked came gale-force wind and snow.
The ship in half did break and deep down she did go.
Twenty-nine doomed men – death they could not cheat.
Into the lake they sank five-hundred feet.
In Lake Superior, tenth of November
occurred this wreck the song makes us remember.
Next to the Titanic, this shipwreck I
am most familiar with . . . and why?
Because of Gordon Lightfoot’s famous song!
“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” shall live long.
I cannot match that brilliant balladeer,
so the ship’s tale (as he sings it) you really have to hear!!
Nov. 7, 2021
For Robert James Liguori's A Noteworthy Ship Poetry Contest
Bob and Hannah went to fish in Wassamassaw Bay.
They told their mom they would return for church so they could pray.
But both of them lost track of time, returning way past noon.
The sun was down and it was dark and there was a full moon.
“What do you have to say to me, for it is very late.
The moon is up, the sun is down, your meals are on your plates.
You haven’t done your chores and now it’s almost time for bed.
The dog is barking angrily for he wants to be fed.”
“We are so very sorry but we did lose track of time.
There was commotion on the Bay although there was no crime.
And when we tried to leave for home the officer said, ‘No.’
He said we’d have to stay a while and that we could not go.”
“He said he had some questions so we would have to stay.
We told him that we had to go to church so we could pray.
The officer said we could go after we told the tale.
Of how in Wassamassaw Bay, we caught a big white whale!”
By Samia Arroyo for David Williams' Palindrome mad contest.
Bob
Hannah
Wassamassaw
mom
noon