Ahab’s Song
God knows if I’m devoted to the sea,
if I have ever shirked its call, He knows!
It floats my destiny and makes my eye,
my closed eye dream.
My leg’s stuck to the deck, and in my head
a vein floats in the wind, screams to the west.
The hold’s a womb and it all keeps on dancing,
a dancing feast.
What are we, cursed sextant?
You tell me where I am, but not where I ought to be!
What are we, cursed sextant?
You tell me where I am, but not where I ought to be!
A cloudless sky: I can no longer pray
the burden of a glance, a pointing finger…
It comes to mind how hard it was to sail,
so here I linger.
The more you sail and see and try and sense
the less you feel you’ve ever sailed and seen
and nothing really seems to be intense:
what does it mean?
What are we, cursed sextant?
You tell me where I am, but not where I ought to be!
What are we, cursed sextant?
You tell me where I am, but not where I ought to be!
Oh poisoned sacred compass, good and evil:
you tell me where I’m sailing to, not where I come from
Had you ever imagined it would be
that hard and painful?
What are we, cursed sextant?
You tell me where I am, but not where I ought to be!
What are we, cursed sextant?
You tell me where I am, but not where I ought to be!
I wanted it, but now what is the price?
My life docked in the harbor, incomplete;
oh, sweetest dream of promise and deceit!
Of a son, a romance, a crippled dog.
They’re lost in time: my leg, my priceless years…
My priceless years!
(Thanks to Marco Crispo for advice and Bennett Dunn for checking the translation)