Skip to content →

Self-Portrait in Ink

Vandal Poem of the Day: February 21, 2017

by Bruce Beasley

As the gone-

translucent

octopus

jet-blasts into evasion, vanishing

while its ink-sac spurts

a cloud of defensive

mucus & coagulant

azure-black pigment,

self-shaped

octopus imago in ink, so the shark

gnashes at that blobbed

sepia phantom,

pseudomorph

that disperses into black

nebulae & shreds

with each shark-strike

& the escaped

octopus throbs

beyond, see-through

in the see-through water, untouched—:

so, go

little poem, little

ink-smudge-on-fingertip

& -print, mimicker

& camouflage,

self-getaway, cloud-

scribble, write

out my dissipating

name on the water,

emptied sac of self-illusive ink . . .

from TheophobiaFind it in the library

Copyright © BOA Editions, Ltd 2012
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of BOA Editions LTD.

Published in Bruce Beasley Poems

This program is supported in part by a grant from the Idaho Humanities Council, a State-based program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this (publication, website, exhibit, etc.) do not necessarily represent those of the Idaho Humanities Council or the National Endowment for the Humanities.