Incarnate - Marvin Bell

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dead man hears the screams of roots being nibbled by rodents.

      He notes the yelps of pebbles forced to maneuver and of boulders pinned into submission.

      He feels the frustration of bodily organs forced to be quiet.

      He thinks it’s no wonder the sky cries and growls when it can.

      The dead man’s words can be just consonants, they can be only vowels, they can pile up behind his teeth like sagebrush on a fence or float like paper ashes to the top of fathomless corridors, they can echo like wind inside a skull or flee captivity like balloons that have met a nail.

      The dead man serves an indeterminate sentence in an elastic cell.

      He hears a voice in the thunder and sees a face in the lightning, and there’s a smell of solder at the junction of earth and sky.

       1. About the Dead Man and Government

      Under Communism, the dead man’s poems were passed around hand-to-hand.

      The dead man’s poems were dog-eared, positively, under Communism.

      The dead man remembers Stalin finally strangling on verbs.

      And the dead man’s poems were mildewed from being hidden in basements under Fascism.

      Embedded in the dead man is a picture of Mussolini hanging from a noun.

      The dead man didn’t know what to say first, after the oppression was lifted.

      The green cast of mildew gave way to the brown stain of coffee upon coffee.

      Suddenly, a pen was a pen and an alligator only an alligator.

      A pig in boots was no longer a human being, a dead man was no longer alive though everyone knew better.

      Now the dead man feels the steamy weight of the world.

      He trembles at the press of the witch hunters, their clothes like night.

      He has in his memory all tortures, genocides, trials and lockups.

      He sees the lovers of pressed flowers brought down by botanical poverty.

      He sees the moviegoers, who kissed through the credits, stunned by the sudden light after the ending.

      In the lobby, the dead man’s manuscripts went under coats and into pockets.

      Then they all went off to spill coffee and argue ethics.

      The dead man is the anarchist whose eyes look up through the bottom of the glass raised in toast.

      The dead man is sweeter than life. Sweeter than life is the life of the dead man.

       2. More About the Dead Man and Government

      The dead man votes once for Abraham Lincoln, but that’s it.

      That’s all he’s time for (one man/one vote), so the dead man votes for Abe Lincoln.

      The dead man votes with his feet, lashing his possessions to his back as if he were Ulysses tied to the mast to resist the siren call to stay put.

      The dead man votes with a gun, disassembling it, beating the parts into scrap metal for farm implements.

      The dead man votes with wet hands, a fishy smell lemon juice can’t cut.

      He comes in off the boat, off the farm, from the cash register and the time clock to throw down a ballot.

      The dead man is there when the revolution stalls in a pile of young corpses.

      It is the dead man’s doing when the final tally is zero to zero.

      The dead man is the freight man on the swing shift at the end of the line.

      The dead man remembers the railroads run down by automobiles, the fields commandeered for storm sewers, the neighborhoods knifed by highways.

      The dead man thinks a dead Lincoln is still better than the other candidates.

      He knows that death stops nothing, and he hopes to be placed among the censored.

      His immortality depends on the quality of his enemies.

      He sees a wormy democracy spilling from the graveyards, its fists flailing at the target.

      There is hope, there is still hope, there is always hope.

      The dead man and his fellow dead are the buried treasure which will ransom the future.

      You have only to believe in the past.

       1. About the Dead Man and Rigor Mortis

      The dead man thinks his resolve has stiffened when the ground dries.

      Feeling the upward flow of moisture, the dead man thinks his resolve has stiffened.

      The dead man’s will, will be done.

      The dead man’s backbone stretches from rung to rung, from here to tomorrow, from a fabricated twinge to virtual agony.

      The dead man’s disks along his spine are like stepping stones across a lake, the doctor told him “jelly doughnuts” when they ruptured, this is better.

      The dead man’s hernial groin is like a canvas bridge across a chasm, the doctor said “balloon” when they operated, this is better.

      The dead man’s toes are like sanded free forms and his heels are as smooth as the backs of new shoes, the doctor said “corns” when they ached, this is better.

      The dead man’s eyes are like tiny globes in water, continental geographies in microcosm, all the canyons are visible, now washed of random hairs that rooted, now free of the strangulated optics of retinal sense, this is better.

      All the dead man’s organs, his skin, muscles, tendons, arteries, veins, valves, networks, relays—the whole shebang hums like a quickly deserted hardware store.

      To the dead man, a head of cabbage is a forerunner of nutrients.

      The dead man’s garden foreshadows the day it is to be plowed under, agriculture being one of the ancient Roman methods for burying the Classics, the other was war.

      No one can argue with the dead man, he brooks no interference between the lightning and ground, his determination is legendary.

       2. More About the Dead Man and Rigor Mortis

      You think it’s funny, the dead man being stiff?

      You think it’s an anatomically correct sexual joke?

      You think it’s easy, being petrified?

      You think it’s just one of those things, being turned to stone?

      Who do you think turns the dead man to stone anyway?

      Who do you think got the idea first?

      You think it’s got a future, this being dead?

      You think it’s in the cards, you think the thunder spoke?

      You think he thought he was dead, or thought he fancied he was dead, or imagined he could think himself dead, or really knew he was dead?

      You think he knew he knew?

      You think it was predetermined?

      You think when he stepped out of character he was different?

      What the hell, what do you think?

      You think it’s funny, the way the dead man is like lightning, going straight into the ground?

      You think it’s hilarious, comedy upstanding, crackers to make sense of?

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