Aught, no. 13 (2004)
Dan Beachy-Quick
Meditation
on a Broken Leg; or, Mediation Between a Bone
and a Missing Bone (Ahab, after the Carpenter carves him
a new leg)
Cancel me
My
debt in the turning lathe’s ledger—
I’ve
a hewn leg more narrow (a
marrow-profit)
in mind
To
stand on the jawbone of the jaw
That
bit me from my own.
I
signed me off on my severed nerve
‘s
electric command: turn-to, strike top-sail, strike—.
The
pain-whetted mind (strike—to the Season-on-the-Line),
The
pain-whetted, pulse-forged, blood-bladed mind—
to
you Due
I
am, I owe, I feel
An
air-flesh grown unseen
On
this too-much-seen bone
as
if I were
not
a
vessel
half-sparred
I
wear a bruised heel on a foot
That
has no heel to bruise.
Madness
aches me
A
step
further
on: cursed . . . mortal
inter-indebtedness
Which
will not do away with ledgers
I
know who I owe and who
Owe
me: You:
White
Whale:
a Sum Unknown.
Another me
Exists the sun
Cannot know: belly-deep:
I
tendon my thought to the Shoreless—
Wave-ridden:
at depths, I am
Not-known. To myself
I
whisper the white whale’s name.
I
square my jib into the gale, sail
Where
the wind unleashed would not allow me.
When
lightning struck the mast
the
mast was fire-blessed to me—
When
a storm-lit, magnet-flame, lit on the blood-forged lance
I
took the lance to lip
and
breathed
The
God-flame out. God-like. God-like—
I
know the angle of flame
At
breath’s bidding. I know the angle
Of
the sail in wind.
O,
bide on me source is source
Of
breath inspire and no other
No
other lifts this hand my hand
Into
the wind I palm my sail
Myself
and strike the God who strikes
Ask
me
What
is a Captain?
“What
is a Captain, Captain?”
He
who fills the White
Ledger
with Red Ink.
Ask
me how much costs
A
Whaling Profit? Ask me—
“Faith, sir, I’ve———.”
“Faith? What’s that?”
“Why, faith, sir, it’s only a sort of exclamation-like—.”
Ask
me to compare:
Within the sun upon the sea
I see
a
darkling self
Who is more me than me.
I feelest tingling life; there, exactly there, there . . . do I.
A
tingling life
In the ghost-limb, jawbone, a
Tingling life
in
the jawbone, unutterable—
Is’t a riddle? the sun?
Unknown
sum? Light begins in
A single
point, a star.
And
then a star expands into
A planet,
my hand gestures an orbit
Of light.
Let
it dwindle—if it drowns
Let
it drown
In the
ocean a lamp the sun.
Strike the sun. It insults me.
The
Head of the Whale (an epistemology, a psychology, an
economy,
a flame, tooth, bone, a theology of the blind, a murder, a deaf ear )
No
thought in the brain-cask
But
flame’s account: 500 gallons
Save
those sparks that in the ocean spilled
Off
the lance-lip and drowned.
A
profit cut from out the head
Of
the whale—beneath the bone-mass
A
liquid thought that is not flame
But
flame-promised: light, a medicinal
Light
to coax ink to be darkness
Leaping
(nightly leaping) from pages bright.
Profit-of:
Profit
of:
the unthought
Thought.
Spermacetti: perfectly . . .
. . . honeycomb of oil, formed by the crossing and re-crossing, into ten thousand infiltrated cells, of tough elastic white fibres throughout its whole extent
.
. . fluid,
Spermacetti:
a
Fluid-thought locked within the
. . . plaited forehead . . .
thought locked within the
. . . innumerable strange devices for the emblematic . . .
vast
. . . adornment of his wondrous tun.
None
but a prophet can speak
Behind
the hieroglyph
-ic
skull
Of
the whale’s electric mind
That
flaming leaps
From
all into all, or—
Unsparked,
calms. A
God’s
multi-sparked thought—
A
brain waiting to light the match by thinking
The
match lit.
God-spark,
anger—
No
profit spoke from the mouth
Of
the whale. Lower-jaw with lance-head
Cut-off.
No profit
In
white-membraned whale-mouth, no
Profit
in that papered-mouth
But
the tooth pulled. Ivory.
Sailor’s
etch their dark stories
On
whale-tooth. Skrimshander. Dark
Story
with their eyes they lived.
They can make a toothpick of a tooth.
Whale’s
head, unfolded. Uses thereof.
1.
Brain-cask, to-be-flame. (A profit)
2.
Papered-mouth, tooth-to-be-carved.
3.
Eyes, ears (A physiology). Note
Two
eyes small as foal’s
Eyes
on opposite sides of the head.
A
forward vision is lacking.
When
the God-spark strikes
The
white whale knows to swim furious
Nightwards,
starless, blind. Stave boat.
Break
lance, bite. Murder the unseen
Man.
Between eyes a flaming
Globe
waits a match
That
could not light the eyes if lit. Mustn’t
A
blind-thought remain blind? ink
Unspoiled
by the page? keep the book
Closed.
The ears of the whale are (Dumb
God)
small enough to plug with a quill-pen.
Skin
of the Whale; or, An Epidermal Inquiry (an analytic glance, moving from
the deepest depth of skin to the shallowest)
Skin
spoken
By
knife’s honed tongue—
By
fluent edge is:
dumb-speech
is: a
Tongue
licking the page to read
The
page is:
No
speech at all. Unsilence
Silence.
Wind
Back
the blubber-profit on the whale again,
unboil
that 100-barrelled profit,
unspark
that flame
Back
to light not yet cast out. We’ve a page
To
read: dark-voice,
dark-eyed-voice,
required.
The question is, what and where is the skin of the whale?
1)
An innermost layer (of skin) cannot be
Found
until
blade strikes
bone
Solid
as bone. Subject: skin, a depth unknown:
A
substance oil-filled but not oil
Until
touched flame cannot be flame.
2)
A surface
Etched
with innumerable crosses
And
recrosses of straight lines—
A
surface engraved, mystic-marked skin—a
First
page to read
on
a volume
Opened,
but of
contents
unknown, a
frontispiece,
an
Author’s
page
Signed
in language that is
no
language we know. 3) Surface-of-
The-Surface:
a transparent Skin-of-Skin: a
Microscopic
layer
A
finger’s strength removes, that
dried,
that
set-to-dry
On
the leaf of a book I use as bookmark
Transparent:
I
put
you on a word
and
the word darkens-out
Through
thinnest skin
the
ink (I’m thinking) grows. A word grows
Larger a word—through whale-skin—more seen.
Copyright © 2004, by the author.
All rights reserved.
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