First Voice:
"Aye, swell me, swell me! Peak again,
Soft response needs renewing.
Upon this ship we thrive, avast,
By motion known as 'screwing.'"

Second Voice:
"Stilled are the waves and all aboard,
Thus no man give a blast.
Must sup. . .alimentatively. . .
Gain strength from a repast.

'Fore the mate goeth, 'Thar she blows'
Or quails quaketh their quim
See, brothers, how salaciously
Ye leer, yet lack in vim. . ."

First Voice
". . .and vigor. Methinks we need more
Oil base to paint the trim."

Second Voice:
"I sense, methinks, a spectral form--
Ah yes, I can see him.

Aye, brothers, spy I on deck high
A form, evacuated
Of leg below the knee; I know
I'm not intoxicated.

'Tis not an hallucination
I spy in this Bligh weather.
Upon his eye, lieth a dyed
Patch tooled of bootblacked leather."

The figure stood upon the deck;
His dudgeoned eye did glitter.
'Twas clearly not one of the guys;
His countenance was bitter.

The sturm, the drang can't be belied,
Surely 'twas safe to say
That this man, he put on no airs--
He sought back, of type pay-.

And then a yell he snapped; the port
Side of his mouth did keen
What sounded like a mad report
Concerning some baleen.

Then toward mystified men he strode,
And they, with fear and dread,
Observed the wraith as he walked on,
Traipsing a wooden tread.
The man looked like a frightful fiend,
Stovepipe perched on his head.

He glared. "Wherefore these women be?
A ship's not for a maid!
'Tis only men who go to sea,
Lest ye be getting laid."

'Twas clear the strange man did not seek
Out carnal swelterings,
At least the type in which one cheers
With wench, swells welterings.

Cries of "Sh*t! flew 'round the ship
From the now softened crew.
They'd no longer feel the breeze
That on their masts just blew.

Then some screamed "Oy!" It were no dream:
A lighthouse they did see,
And then did the pegleggèd jerk
Set every c**t free.

Into the harbor, past the bar
We watched them row away
The wretched wraith railed out to God;
We heard but one word: "Slay!"

Because 'twere not near to Christmas,
We assumed that this loon
Meant not old Saint Nick's conveyance
That riseth toward the moon.

Monophonic homophone. . .stress
Would convey a hint naught
What he did mean? We'd have to guess. . .
With connotation fraught.

We'd ruled out realms of "Silent Night,"
So a lexical game
Did we play ere we'd say, "Proffer
To us, mad man, thy name."

When one sticks whales, one's near the prow,
Flicks the harpoon through air,
And the rowboat might become wrecked
If wrenched beyond repair.

Called the "Nantucket Sleigh Ride," that
Might be what he'd implied.
But "slay" can also mean a man
Or something living's died.

This serious man raised his hand
And affirmed: "Black is night,
As is my mood; my ardor's fanned
By something that be white."

Blath'ring of blanche made the man stand;
We perceived that his part
Was planked not by our banished skanks
But thoughts of the stabbed heart

Of a leviathan while oars
Leaven the sea like beer,
As we embark on the ride Sleigh
And under disappear.

The pilot and the pilot's boy,
Who'd served as ersatz lass,
Asked, "Man, what name dost thou employ?
Thou talk'st bigger than bass."

He whirled, in unslurred, murd'rous voice--
Thumped down his leg of wood--
And thundered to assembled hims:
"Hear this and hear it good!
I've sold my soul. Thou want'st my name?!
'Tis Ahab, understood?!!"