Limericks and Poetry about Moby Dick

A novel steeped in symbolism and drenched in mythology, Moby Dick is always a fertile place to turn for a little poetic inspiration. Although oftentimes impenetrable like Ulysses, Melville’s story of the hunt for the great white whale tells the story of a bold and perilous adventure through the dark waters of the human psyche.

The quest for the whale is also the quest for God, the struggle to grasp the ungraspable and to comprehend the incomprehensible. What I hear Melville saying is that we cannot come to terms with God (or whatever name you prefer to ascribe to the underpinning of metaphysical reality) until we’ve accepted the fact that God exceeds all categories of understanding and defies every attempt at a definition.

Moby Dick
Old Ahab could teach us a valuable lesson
The one thing he wanted escaped his possession
The crew he recruited
All died in pursuit of
The meaning of life: the impossible question

Lost Sailors
Odysseus, Ishmael, set sail on their own
Ungrounded, uncertain, on saltwater foam
So see how they shift
In their vessels adrift
As the four winds deliver them light years from home

A Jungian reading of “Moby Dick”

The following poem, obviously not a limerick, erupted out of my subconsciousness sometime after reading Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano, the cryptic story of one man’s alcoholic binge in southern Mexico. I had also been thinking a lot about Moby Dick at that time, and going through a lengthy phase in which I interpreted everything I read or saw through the lens of Carl Jung’s depth psychology.

The essence of the Jungian reading is that each character in a story or myth is meant to depict a distinct character, but a different aspect (or archetype) within a single mind. Every individual is comprised of multiple voices, and at any given time, a different character will take the helm. It may be the outspoken warrior, the soft spoken victim, the unruly beast, and so on. And you’ll find me exploring this theme in many of limericks.

I make a panoply of references to literature, mythology and heavy drinking in this poem, but they all circle back to that insatiable appetite for meaning that sometimes drives us to madness. Perhaps you can read it as a sort of shouting match between one inner voice who believes there’s an inherent meaning to human existence, and another voice who insists that there’s none.

Out of my Depth

Shaking my head as I shuffle through Nod
And wander through darkness on scabrous old feet
Where the fruits are forbidden, and might I add strictly
But the knowledge is ever so sweet

I’m Under the Influence of sir Malcolm L
And M. L. von Franz has me under her spell
Seeking the change that I wish I could be
While my dear inner Ahab I struggle to quell

To search by escaping through tropics and trenches
Determined to make every ocean my home
My singular purpose: the potion that quenches
Still I drink that I could theme alone

In this watering hole will I bury my hatchets
A sickness that’s cured is an ailment forgotten
So choke every sorrow and drown your regrets
A soul that remembers is cursed to go rotten

With penalties and interest forever compounded
I’m astounded to watch how my recollection grows
The proverbial wisdom that’s also called madness
Is purchased on credit and paid for with woes

Drifting asea to steer clear of collectors
Engulfed instead by tempests my own
Echoing voices demanding comeuppance
From the depth comes a cry that disturbs every bone

These howling reminders are issued below
From under the surface by more than a beast
My pirates on deck keep me bound to the mast
Always in earshot and never released

Mostly a head but with hardly a face
My nemesis, massive, can scarcely be seen
Not to be measured through time or in space
From his cousins’ cadavers our data we glean

Less than a man, I stomp on my stump
And promise to silence the primitive brute
Guided by starlight, unable to sleep
Harpoon at the ready and eager to shoot

Damn the torpedoes and to hell with the crew
Set sail at once for the wide open blue
Don’t be seduced by this monster in white
His message is wicked, no less than it’s true

He feeds on your anger, you’re never too old
To listen instead of exerting your tongue
Or shaking the hinges of Davy Jones’ locker
On the floor of the ocean where Melville met Jung

One more limerick about Moby Dick

In the following limerick, I tried to capture the symbol of the white whale, as a metaphor for God, the ground of all being, and the great unknowable.

The Way of the White Whale
The whale is a fish and a mammal in one
As white has all colors and also has none
The grandest of creatures
With paradox features
Unknown and untouched by the light of the sun