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A. Etymology of: The Unabridged
(Ishmael Mulls)
Yes
I am one—a
Mariner who sailed through midnight
Sea of milky whiteness: a
haunting,
I
Found me of terror—. Blank-dread,
dread-
Eyed, white-lead chapter,
I
Am editor, I
fathom depths
not my own—I
Own nothing
But another’s page, Author Unknown.
Drop
anchor
In ink
and drop anchor
In ocean:
lead sinks
But sails
in current
Above
no bed
The anchor
is ocean’s sail, and
I am one who sailed
Through midnight sea: a
blank sea, a
blank
Sea. I suffered so—
Beneath my captain’s madness,
my own
Book-self abridged, abridged
While the ocean-volume in blanks
ocean
in blanks
in
ocean
blank
I swear (my hand on the surface
Of the moonless ocean’s ink)
I would surrender
Myself to You
For a typo: a ocean, a ocean
an
sea, an sea
but one
mark, a pip, please
misspell
the empty sea—
for me,
spell wrong, the sea.
Call me Ishmael (again). Call me _________.
cormorant|ink-winged bibliophile
albatross|editor-of-distant-wandering
sea-hawk|ravenous lexicographer
Let one
blue line of the lined page
Be bed
to interlined white
Expanse
of ocean. Ink me in
The anchor
if I need I want
To need
less
The definite article above the unabridged
Blank to define. No. A possesses, it
is dispossessed.
Me—a_________. [inkpot]
a ________. [desires a]
a me. Editor—
A “You.” Take your salt-fraught,
crystal-quill, your
Evaporated fathoms
and mark me, a
sub-altern, mark me
The godly,
ungodly article: a—
who is a
single one? Show
him
To me. I’m writing
A dictionary, un-
Abridged. My riddle is:
First Letter, First Entry: a.
Who is he?
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