Never Call the Evil Whales Forth By Name

Never summon the evil whales forth

lest they hunger for a salt’s murder

or seek to ravage their ship.

 

They cry out havoc, scream tempest

to the ocean and sky

so the illhveli hear not their name.

 

Their harpooned blubber

boils neither to heaven nor hell

but vanishes only inside the soul.

 

They fear only the steypireydurs

the Great Blue Behemoths,

the protectors of sailors and crafts.

 

The salts’ wives smell the devil in their remnants

and to keep the fury at bay they call

their men honeyed names clothed in peace.

 

The mates consign this sweetness

 to the void, a sea of faceless women

to be left alone in their slumbers. 

 

At dawn, they  return

to the great wide green ocean

that hungers for their flesh.

 

They chum cowshed, yarrows, ash,

throw plowshares, axes and pots creating

a sacred din outside the incarnadine circles.

 

Cat Whales would come forth

with their devil-angel flukes

half in sun and watery dark.

 

They mewl alongside,

resting in the craft’s wake,

diving when the waters darkened 

 

And the roar of Bull Whales spouting loudly 

through their blowholes would scare

the distant  cattle to stampede the waters.

 

The Ox Whales, swimming

faster than hand and mind,

would devour the calves

 

Leaving only nibbles

for the belugas that trailed

behind in white silence. 

 

Bottlenose Dolphins after herding

the Ox Whales beyond the spray

would jump straight high

 

out of the water

exposing the sun and mountains

appearing underneath them. 

 

In the rest between breaths

a Taumur awaited beneath their crafts

for the opportunity to break them apart.

 

On the glint of the horizon a Ling Whale

drifting like a mirage of barnacles

waited to maroon them on her hide.

 

Today, the Great Blue Behemoth

heard their anguish and would gently

guide them back to their sandy, rocky home. 

 

In their unsteady slumbers

they would hitch a ride

on the back of a Heatherback

 

And dive with it

to the ocean’s floor until

their last bubbles floated up.

 

Around them all the dorsal waves

of the Sword Whale splashed them

while she sliced them in two.

 

Far away, the Narwhale sniffed

their blood in the water and

waited her turn to eat.