And then there's Melville

Somewhat earlier than all of these
would be Melville,
a kind of patron saint for this tradition,
who wrote of the strange collaborations

amongst mankind

on the unforgiving scourges

of the sea,

reaching his impossible crescendo,

impossible since it broke his reputation,

his career, his ambition

but not his merit or future potential,

in the tale of Moby-Dick,

a Belano since the tragedy
of confinement at sea
omits everything
not aboard the Pequod,
which is to say,

as a later writer did,

Ahab's wife,

a Larrson since the result
was so unrelenting,

a Hemingway since this was a man

who understood the toil of the race,

the unrelenting hostility

one cannot simply redeem

on a whim

in order to solve

but rather face

with courage or otherwise,

one's terrible fate,
which brings us back
to Belano,

who sacrificed his future
in order to ensure it.

As these things go.