CALL, ME, ISHMAEL

Call: What is to name; to disambiguate; to wrestle some small control over what is otherwise formless; what is to beckon, as in a dog or a God, verbal equivalent (in some cultures) of the index finger pointing and hooking inward; what is a kind of nomination; acknowledgement of existence, whose very existence depends upon such acknowledgment.

Me: What is deictic, shifting; what is myself; what is "everyone," assuming atomic relation (W. Whitman); what is "absolutely not You" (A. Notley); what is he who goes to sea when feeling at sea (H. Melville); what is the speaker, persona, voice, author (e.g., M. Buchinger).  

Ishmael: What is a name that names; equal parts arbitrary and motivated; what is Biblical: wayward son of Abraham, both chosen and rejected, victim of Divine caprice (what is another way of understanding our lives); what is a nominal predicate which, while proper, shares with every word in every language, the possibility of being actual, provisional, and/or false.

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THE STARFISH 

I
was
five when
I met my first
starfish, wrapped in a paper towel in Becky Bublitz's
sideboard, five pale pink arms and a mouth
ringed with spikes.
 It's still alive,    she  told  me,
be  careful,  it  could        bite. Its arms stiff &
light as stalks of rye bal-          anced on my fingertips.

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CALL, ME, ISHMAEL:

I wrote this poem after reading "Call Me Ishmael" by Jackson Mac Low [here] and re-reading the opening paragraph of Melville’s Moby Dick [here].

THE STARFISH:

Having moved to the East Coast from Michigan, I have met many more starfish/sea stars since my first encounter, yet I maintain a healthy respect for their spiky centers.