Incarnate - Marvin Bell

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dead man, rigor is the discipline of exchanging atom for atom.

      It’s the same story when the dead man meditates on anything at all.

      A small bird is one of something that comes down in bunches.

      A large bird is a universe, an entirety held from above.

      Intentions keep things in place, and change is a material flip-flop, a swap.

      The dead man believes the evidence at the ends of his fingers: a misstep.

      The dead man takes his direction from the placement of his feet, convinced that a pair of anything is no accident.

      The dead man feels the tractor turning up the dirt and the soil reassembling in the grave.

      The dead man hears the anchor descend in judgment.

      He feels the waves sneer at the boat they break apart.

      He senses the confidence of the rain in going where it wants to, and the condescension of the sun as it recalls.

      The dead man is privy to mistakes, the mixed flock, the broken shadow, the indefinite article of faith, the powerless totem, the broken altar, the stopped prayer wheel.

      The dead man’s fiercest teeth were reborn as dust.

      The dead man mixes with those in black suits to hear who judges.

       2. More About the Dead Man and Sin

      When the dead man finds a coin, he wants it to be heads-up.

      Before he picks up a penny, the dead man wants it to be heads-up.

      The dead man’s good luck is a weapon to vanquish dragons.

      The dead man has seen dragons of such cosmetic skill that their scent alone flattered the willows into a fatal swoon.

      He watches for the horrible bird feet, the feverish tongue, the armored complexion.

      After many encampments, the lamps are tepid in the dead man’s vigil.

      The dead man has it in him to hold still, to abstain, to decline.

      When there is no more luck, no far side to a hard edge, no final rain, no fatal dehydration, no unwelcome visitation, no lingering suspicion, no terminal judgment, then the dead man is all black cats and rabbit paws.

      The dead man is marked by night-walking on the grass, by the crisscrossing of predator and prey and the celebrity pedestrian.

      The screech of a bird is like a whining keel in the darkness.

      The dead man feels the earth nod yes and no with the legacy of the righteous and the tide of battle.

      The dead man does nothing with the proof at hand or the direction underfoot, neither does he long for an edge to his neutrality.

      The dead man’s good deeds are ever bearing fruit.

       1. About the Dead Man and His Cortege

      Dead man says “cortege” because, who knows?, means to be watched from a distance.

      In dreams lost, the dead man unquestionably meant something.

      Just as well the dead man’s language not in the dictionary, good outcome.

      When there is no more approval, no okay, nothing sufficient or appropriate, then it’s just as well the dead man’s words can’t be looked up.

      The dead man inclines toward an erasable slate.

      The dead man knows what Hobbes said and goes along from Hobbes’ perspective: “nasty, brutish, and short.”

      The dead man holds to the horizon, the cause of perspective.

      The dead man, not able to hold a pen to render, thus not having to decide this side or that, doesn’t see things Hobbes’ way unless he tries to.

      The dead man thinks Hobbes was one of those grass-is-always-greener fellows who went into the jungle.

      The dead man is a preservationist, a nutrition conservative, an inactive environmentalist rotting within the system.

      The dead man’s cortege follows him for philosophical reasons, the students of supernal gravity.

      The dead man makes no tracts, leaves no artifacts not in fragments.

      The dead man’s skin no good for bookbinding, too wrinkled.

      The dead man’s eyes no good for marbles, out-of-round.

      The dead man’s ears no sound-system, scattered parts for a horseshoeing.

      The dead man’s bones skewer the architecture.

      The dead man’s veins and arteries no good for plumbing, stripped threads and leaky.

      The dead man’s bladder won’t hold air, so no balloon, no bellows.

      The dead man’s nails a poor mica, the dead man’s hair bad straw.

      The dead man’s vocal cords no harp for a fork, won’t hold a tuning.

      The dead man’s blood no good for oil, too much iron.

      The dead man’s shoulders a faulty yoke, ill-fit to the oxen.

       2. More About the Dead Man and His Cortege

      Drying, the dead man rises at dawn like active yeast.

      At sundown, the dead man descends from that chemical pride for which body heat is the catalyst into the rag-and-wood vat.

      The dead man is the chief ingredient in paper and in marks on paper.

      Muddy blood is the ink in the leaves of grass.

      The dead man’s a craftsman of ivy, vines and the broken lattice.

      The dead man testifies to wind, torn bushes and the clatter from the henhouse.

      Placing the dead man is difficult, putting him away takes time, he knocks on the walls of a resonant cavity underfoot.

      The dead man reappears by first light and last light, in olive light, in queer violet light, in blossoming light, defenseless light, torn light, frozen light, sweating light, and he himself is lit from within.

      The dead man has the luminescence of rotting wood.

      When there is nowhere to go to find him, no circumstance, no situation, no jewel in the crown, no gem of the ocean, no pearl of the Antilles, no map, no buried treasure, only woods and more woods, then suddenly he will appear to you with a cortege of wolves or foxes in the midst of your blues.

      The dead man lives on Socratic dialogue and fungi.

      The dead man has plenty of company.

       1. About the Dead Man and The Book of the Dead Man

      The dead man thinks he is hungry when he hears his stomach rumble.

      Hearing his stomach rumble, the dead man thinks he is hungry.

      He thinks himself hungry because he doesn’t think he is no one.

      The dead man repairs to his study to eat his words.

      He lingers to watch the hourglass change from time to no-time.

      He leans at the window to look for whitecaps, thunderclouds, the accruing ozone of a low, the yellow cast of tornado air.

      The dead man’s bones are freezing, though his skin is room temperature.

      The dead man’s nerves will not give up, his tongue refuses to quit, his brain saves up until it sparks, his blood abandons his extremities to go where needed, his pulse suddenly races,

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