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Exegesis of the First Words Spoken (Ishmael)

By Dan Beachy-Quick b. 1973 Dan Beachy-Quick

Scholar-on-waves, a water-gazer,

Call me

Ishmael. Re-enter my own life.

Waves: they murmur, babble, waves

Do not articulate what the ocean

Turning in its bed thinks: What must be said.

Sing above or sing

Below

The knot in the plank, the cursive

Pine-grain

Of my life in the bow and my life

Bay-less in the bowels

Of the bow

I signed myself on as me

to become more so

myself—

A study, one volume of 36 signatures, 576 pages (9 blank for notes),

And became dispossessed of all

but one mis-

spoken leaf—

Pro- and epilogue both. Sign your mark. I do

Find the escape

Clause titled in fine print, watermarked, on condition

Of being or becoming: me

Tar-dark, thumbless or thumbed,

Ocean eats the nib of pen

But a nub dipped in pitch

Sing above or sing below

The wave’s back

Broken by another wave

There is no air besides

A nub dipped in pitch

Can’t help

But write, beneath the sea-hawk’s wing

The sea-hawk’s cry, Sign your mark

With a nail, a splinter, a harpoon

In the hand can’t help

But

Sing above and sing below

But write but

What song strides surface tension

Help but write

Thirst chokes and salt slakes

A contract for a name

Of being or becoming

Ink on the line, a name or a contract

For a name, a thumbprint, or I

Signed me on on my name alone: Now

Profit Now Leak Now Bury Now Speak.

Source: Spell (2004)

Biography

Poet and essayist Dan Beachy-Quick was born in Chicago and raised in Colorado and upstate New York. He was educated at Hamilton College, the University of Denver, and the University of Iowa.

Beachy-Quick's poetry collections include North True South Bright (2003); Mulberry (2006), a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award for poetry; and This Nest, Swift Passerine (2009). He is also the author of A Whaler's Dictionary . . .

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