Goodreads helps you follow your favorite authors. Be the first to learn about new releases!
Start by following Dan Beachy-Quick.
Showing 1-14 of 14
“Memory is igneous more than ingenious, igneous, and like granite, intrusive, heaved up within oneself, the whole range of one's life, mountains' forbidding height looming over the plains where one lives, mountains formed by the life already lived, but toward which one is always walking, one's own past ahead of him, seeking the improbable path already forged, this path back through oneself, this path we call the present tense, which becomes the continental divide when the tense shifts and the path is lost, path from which the walker emerges only to turn around and see the peaks pulled up by his feet, and the snowy pass, and alpine heights, where those stranded must sometime feed on themselves to survive, where sometimes, through the icy crust, the crocus blooms.”
― An Impenetrable Screen of Purest Sky: A Novel
― An Impenetrable Screen of Purest Sky: A Novel
“I like the moment of failure that finds us on that line, abandoned of intent, caught in an experience of a different order, stalking the line between two different worlds and imperfectly taking”
― Wonderful Investigations: Essays, Meditations, Tales
― Wonderful Investigations: Essays, Meditations, Tales
“Antique Foundation
Here I built the ruin in
My voice on either side of me
In the temple the ocean could
Not be a crowd I mined
The shore with fog the sun dries
These bricks I built the vision in
The cinder block that is the city
Wall this grave
Tone I speak with a picture
Of myself in my wallet
•
Don’t be fooled by grass and these words
Grass whispers
Because they are real they are
Ruinous Here, the gossip is in the dust
Not the sea cloud enters the open
Child’s window dimming the silver
Flute’s sheen Where is he
Who hears inside the brick those notes?
There is a rumor in the city we’ll exist
If he plays his song no one knows
•
Follow that shadow don’t tell me it’s mine
Here there is no being alone
Here are my hands which tore the leaves so
Quietly in the temple the god
Emerging from marble points at the chisel
At the base of his stone Did I tell you
Where I’m going? To the old man
Who sings the margin
Where on wave-tip swords turn edge over edge
Wound us and the shore with foam
•
My face on either side of my face I tore
My picture in half to show the gate
You must climb inside your breath to leave
As fog the wind will bear you—
If you’re lovely—away In the spare clouds
The children’s chorus Do you hear?—
Where were you, and where are you going?
Here I built the ruin in the stone-crushed
Sage leaves my hands scented as long ago
When I liked to press the desert against my head to think”
―
Here I built the ruin in
My voice on either side of me
In the temple the ocean could
Not be a crowd I mined
The shore with fog the sun dries
These bricks I built the vision in
The cinder block that is the city
Wall this grave
Tone I speak with a picture
Of myself in my wallet
•
Don’t be fooled by grass and these words
Grass whispers
Because they are real they are
Ruinous Here, the gossip is in the dust
Not the sea cloud enters the open
Child’s window dimming the silver
Flute’s sheen Where is he
Who hears inside the brick those notes?
There is a rumor in the city we’ll exist
If he plays his song no one knows
•
Follow that shadow don’t tell me it’s mine
Here there is no being alone
Here are my hands which tore the leaves so
Quietly in the temple the god
Emerging from marble points at the chisel
At the base of his stone Did I tell you
Where I’m going? To the old man
Who sings the margin
Where on wave-tip swords turn edge over edge
Wound us and the shore with foam
•
My face on either side of my face I tore
My picture in half to show the gate
You must climb inside your breath to leave
As fog the wind will bear you—
If you’re lovely—away In the spare clouds
The children’s chorus Do you hear?—
Where were you, and where are you going?
Here I built the ruin in the stone-crushed
Sage leaves my hands scented as long ago
When I liked to press the desert against my head to think”
―
“I see the world is flat and the map flat
that records it, and both page and world
speak each other forever. Put a fold
in eternity and it is just as flat and wide.
Take the map of the world and fold it
into a boat and the boat becomes the world.”
― Spell
that records it, and both page and world
speak each other forever. Put a fold
in eternity and it is just as flat and wide.
Take the map of the world and fold it
into a boat and the boat becomes the world.”
― Spell
“To teach
a student
riddle
a student
with
his own life
To teach
a student
ask
a student
the question
he asked you
in words
more learned
than his words
until he relents
and he says
a student
There is no answer
I don't know”
― Apology for the Book of Creatures
a student
riddle
a student
with
his own life
To teach
a student
ask
a student
the question
he asked you
in words
more learned
than his words
until he relents
and he says
a student
There is no answer
I don't know”
― Apology for the Book of Creatures
“Wonder, as a point of concern, denies its own consideration. It has the remarkable capacity to hide in the midst of its revelation. Wonder, to preserve itself, withdraws. It withdraws from the mind, from the willing mind, which would make of mystery a category.”
― Wonderful Investigations: Essays, Meditations, Tales
― Wonderful Investigations: Essays, Meditations, Tales
“Totality of Spheres excerpt
: Far-night comes our consummation in time star shapes in separate lakes the you-sheen
: Rag to wipe down the child’s mercury brow blood-heat doesn’t end it begins our work
: Egret at pond’s edge of mind vague regret of venus holding an apple holding her breath
: Lust wants what wound it can find heals the harm by balming the blade
: Himself he says to himself the trembling king creates a cloud to hide away the hours
: Rhyme in a ring undoes into child’s song time’s titan rule a no-atom-bell resounding
: Obit of the discarded orders or truth suffers into oblivion or the fact wears a shroud
: Lain down at long last the bones beauty wore inside herself on ocean bed lovely
: Sings in the outermost undergrove shadowwaste soulspent worldwant some form or art
: Your word some angel I guess some cherub embroidered on the veil that note
: Word sewn on the love veil solar sail star primer tone tome tomb the readerless name”
―
: Far-night comes our consummation in time star shapes in separate lakes the you-sheen
: Rag to wipe down the child’s mercury brow blood-heat doesn’t end it begins our work
: Egret at pond’s edge of mind vague regret of venus holding an apple holding her breath
: Lust wants what wound it can find heals the harm by balming the blade
: Himself he says to himself the trembling king creates a cloud to hide away the hours
: Rhyme in a ring undoes into child’s song time’s titan rule a no-atom-bell resounding
: Obit of the discarded orders or truth suffers into oblivion or the fact wears a shroud
: Lain down at long last the bones beauty wore inside herself on ocean bed lovely
: Sings in the outermost undergrove shadowwaste soulspent worldwant some form or art
: Your word some angel I guess some cherub embroidered on the veil that note
: Word sewn on the love veil solar sail star primer tone tome tomb the readerless name”
―
“The Cricket and the Grasshopper
The senseless leaf in the fevered hand
Grows hot, near blood-heat, but never grows
Green. Weeks ago the dove’s last cooing strain
Settled silent in the nest to brood slow
Absence from song. The dropped leaf cools
On the uncut grass, supple still, still green,
Twining still these fingers as they listless pull
The tangle straight until the tangle tightens
And the hand is caught, another fallen leaf.
The poetry of the earth never ceases
Ceasing — one blade of grass denies belief
Until its mere thread bears the grasshopper’s
Whole weight, and the black cricket sings unseen,
Desire living in a hole beneath the tangle’s green.”
―
The senseless leaf in the fevered hand
Grows hot, near blood-heat, but never grows
Green. Weeks ago the dove’s last cooing strain
Settled silent in the nest to brood slow
Absence from song. The dropped leaf cools
On the uncut grass, supple still, still green,
Twining still these fingers as they listless pull
The tangle straight until the tangle tightens
And the hand is caught, another fallen leaf.
The poetry of the earth never ceases
Ceasing — one blade of grass denies belief
Until its mere thread bears the grasshopper’s
Whole weight, and the black cricket sings unseen,
Desire living in a hole beneath the tangle’s green.”
―
“Lines
The lightning struck him and left a scar.
The wind stopped blowing and the wheat stood up.
Self-tensed self, who is this I that says I ?
I had a scar in the shape of lightning
That split in half when I opened my mouth.
The sun just a circle of heat in the sky
Throwing absence in the shape of clouds
Down on the field. Another life placed
In the middle of the life I called my own.
A lesser god commanded the front: return.
A little god knocked about in the germ.
The third person put me outside my own sphere.
A small god chanting lightning in the synapse.
Wind blows the wheat down. He calls it prayer.”
―
The lightning struck him and left a scar.
The wind stopped blowing and the wheat stood up.
Self-tensed self, who is this I that says I ?
I had a scar in the shape of lightning
That split in half when I opened my mouth.
The sun just a circle of heat in the sky
Throwing absence in the shape of clouds
Down on the field. Another life placed
In the middle of the life I called my own.
A lesser god commanded the front: return.
A little god knocked about in the germ.
The third person put me outside my own sphere.
A small god chanting lightning in the synapse.
Wind blows the wheat down. He calls it prayer.”
―
“Endangered Species
Even this
brief thought is endless. A
man speaks as if unaware of the
erotic life of the ampersand. In the
isolate field he comes to count one by
one the rare butterflies as they
die. He says witness is to say what
you mean as if you mean it. So many
of them are the color of the leaves
they feed on, he calls sympathy a fact, a
word by which he means to make a claim
about grace. I have in my
life said many things I did not
exactly mean. Walk
graceless through the field. Graceless so
the insects leap up into the blank
page where the margins fill
with numbers that speak diminishment.
Absence as it nears also offers astonishment.
Absence riddles even this
briefest thought, here
is your introduction to desire, time's
underneath where the roots root down
into nothing like loose threads
hanging from the weaving's underside.
No one seeing the roots
can guess
at the field above. Green
equation that ends in yellow
occasions. Theory is
insubstantial. The eye latches on
to the butterflies as they fly
and the quick heart follows, not
a root in nothing but a thread across
abstraction. They fly away.
What in us follows we do not name.
What the butterflies pull out us
as in battle horses pull
chariot, we do not
name. But there is none, no battle,
no surge, no retreat, a field
full not of danger, but the endangered,
where dust-wings pull from us
what we thought we lost, what theory
denies, where in us ideas go to die,
and thought with the quaking grass quakes.
Some call it breath but I'm still breathing.
So empty I know I'm not any emptier.
On slim threads they pull it out me,
disperse-no
one takes notes-disappear, &”
―
Even this
brief thought is endless. A
man speaks as if unaware of the
erotic life of the ampersand. In the
isolate field he comes to count one by
one the rare butterflies as they
die. He says witness is to say what
you mean as if you mean it. So many
of them are the color of the leaves
they feed on, he calls sympathy a fact, a
word by which he means to make a claim
about grace. I have in my
life said many things I did not
exactly mean. Walk
graceless through the field. Graceless so
the insects leap up into the blank
page where the margins fill
with numbers that speak diminishment.
Absence as it nears also offers astonishment.
Absence riddles even this
briefest thought, here
is your introduction to desire, time's
underneath where the roots root down
into nothing like loose threads
hanging from the weaving's underside.
No one seeing the roots
can guess
at the field above. Green
equation that ends in yellow
occasions. Theory is
insubstantial. The eye latches on
to the butterflies as they fly
and the quick heart follows, not
a root in nothing but a thread across
abstraction. They fly away.
What in us follows we do not name.
What the butterflies pull out us
as in battle horses pull
chariot, we do not
name. But there is none, no battle,
no surge, no retreat, a field
full not of danger, but the endangered,
where dust-wings pull from us
what we thought we lost, what theory
denies, where in us ideas go to die,
and thought with the quaking grass quakes.
Some call it breath but I'm still breathing.
So empty I know I'm not any emptier.
On slim threads they pull it out me,
disperse-no
one takes notes-disappear, &”
―
“Some Consequences of the Made Thing
The End. Above these words the sky closes.
It closes by turning white. Not
The white of all clouds or being within a cloud.
White of worldless light. The End.
Feel a silence there that reminds you of a scent.
Crushed grass the hooves galloped through
Or is it the binder’s glue?
Some silence never not real finally can be
Heard. Silence before the first words.
Precedent chaos. Or marrow work.
Or just the sound of the throat opening to speak.
Like those scholars of pure water
Who rode through mountains and meadows
To drink from each fresh spring a glass
And then with brush and ink wrote poems
On the differences of sameness,
You too feel yourself taste the silent page
Of the end and the silent page of beginning.
They taste so much of whiteness never more
White than white that’s been lost.
You have some sense of the book
Altering, page sewn secretly next to page,
Last page stitched to first. O, earth—
It rolls around the solar scroll
Turning nothing into years and years into
Nothing. At The End you’re a witness to this work
That wears the witness away. And who are you
Anyway. Pronoun of the 2nd person. Lover,
Stranger, God. Student, Child, Shade.
Something similar gathers in you.
Another way of saying I in a poem—
Of saying I in a poem that realizes at the end
That I am just a distance from myself.
And so are you. That same distance.”
―
The End. Above these words the sky closes.
It closes by turning white. Not
The white of all clouds or being within a cloud.
White of worldless light. The End.
Feel a silence there that reminds you of a scent.
Crushed grass the hooves galloped through
Or is it the binder’s glue?
Some silence never not real finally can be
Heard. Silence before the first words.
Precedent chaos. Or marrow work.
Or just the sound of the throat opening to speak.
Like those scholars of pure water
Who rode through mountains and meadows
To drink from each fresh spring a glass
And then with brush and ink wrote poems
On the differences of sameness,
You too feel yourself taste the silent page
Of the end and the silent page of beginning.
They taste so much of whiteness never more
White than white that’s been lost.
You have some sense of the book
Altering, page sewn secretly next to page,
Last page stitched to first. O, earth—
It rolls around the solar scroll
Turning nothing into years and years into
Nothing. At The End you’re a witness to this work
That wears the witness away. And who are you
Anyway. Pronoun of the 2nd person. Lover,
Stranger, God. Student, Child, Shade.
Something similar gathers in you.
Another way of saying I in a poem—
Of saying I in a poem that realizes at the end
That I am just a distance from myself.
And so are you. That same distance.”
―
“Ritual Version
—for Kate Middleton
humself, shamself, hymnself, shameself—.
lameself, lambself, numbself, unself—.
sing anger, goddess, of—. many devices—.
sing anger godless—. tell me who—.
sacred in the sea suffered so many woes—.
bookshelf, doubtshelf, debtshelf, riftshelf—.
driftshelf, truthshelf, foolshelf, rueshelf—.
sing less the many souls sent—. they perished—.
sing spoils for the dogs—. who swallowed down
the foolish song—. the soul and its companions—.
nounself, nonceself, nonself, lashself—.
ashself, lawself, thoughtself, aughtself—.
tell me, muse, from any point—. and birds—.
sing less the wrath of—. a man’s cleverness—.
tell also us—. of recklessness—. of home—.”
―
—for Kate Middleton
humself, shamself, hymnself, shameself—.
lameself, lambself, numbself, unself—.
sing anger, goddess, of—. many devices—.
sing anger godless—. tell me who—.
sacred in the sea suffered so many woes—.
bookshelf, doubtshelf, debtshelf, riftshelf—.
driftshelf, truthshelf, foolshelf, rueshelf—.
sing less the many souls sent—. they perished—.
sing spoils for the dogs—. who swallowed down
the foolish song—. the soul and its companions—.
nounself, nonceself, nonself, lashself—.
ashself, lawself, thoughtself, aughtself—.
tell me, muse, from any point—. and birds—.
sing less the wrath of—. a man’s cleverness—.
tell also us—. of recklessness—. of home—.”
―
“I write because I read. I imagine many of us are this way, bewildered in the tangle of these activities: writing to understand how better to read, reading to understand how better to write.”-Dan Beachy-Quick”
―
―
“Poem (Internal Scene)
To make beauty out of pain, it damns the eyes—
No, dams the eyes. See how they overflow?
No damns them, damns them, and so they cry.
What shape can I swallow to make me whole?
Baby’s bird-shaped block, blue-painted wood
That fits in the bird-hole of the painted wood box?
The skeleton leaf? The skeleton key? Loud
Knock when the shape won’t unlock any locks.
I hear it through the static in the baby’s room
When the monitor clicks on and off, sound
Of sea-ice cracking against the jagged sea-rocks,
Laughing gull in the gale. What is it dives down
Past sight, down there dark with the other blocks?
It can’t be seen, only heard. A kind of curse,
This kind curse. Forgive me. Blessing that hurts.”
―
To make beauty out of pain, it damns the eyes—
No, dams the eyes. See how they overflow?
No damns them, damns them, and so they cry.
What shape can I swallow to make me whole?
Baby’s bird-shaped block, blue-painted wood
That fits in the bird-hole of the painted wood box?
The skeleton leaf? The skeleton key? Loud
Knock when the shape won’t unlock any locks.
I hear it through the static in the baby’s room
When the monitor clicks on and off, sound
Of sea-ice cracking against the jagged sea-rocks,
Laughing gull in the gale. What is it dives down
Past sight, down there dark with the other blocks?
It can’t be seen, only heard. A kind of curse,
This kind curse. Forgive me. Blessing that hurts.”
―
