Marvin Bell

The Book of the Dead Man (#53)

1.  About the Dead Man and Sap


The dead man will not add 1 + 1.
He squeezes things that settle near him until they drip a little.
The dead man's things shine with an oil pressed from the raw flakes of beached fish, the ripe carcasses of birds that
        winter would not release, the everyday jam and jelly of who wants what.
Who and the dead man have felt the earth heave though the air was still?
Who and the dead man have made their bed and lie in it?
It is a panoply, a plethora, a surplus, a surfeit, an abundance, a bounty and an earthly prosperity.
The dead man cut his hand caressing the scaled hearts of catfish and trout, he stiffened from gripping the back of the
        crab while its claws clicked, his joints display the geology of labor and love-making, he is wrinkled from
        laughter and stained from tears.
When there is no more wrinkling and weeping, no physiognomy of pleasure, no anticipation, no abundance, nothing
        extra, then okay it's the way it is, not the way we remember.


2.  More About the Dead Man and Sap


The milk, juice and pitch of the dead man ebb and flow.
Lifting and falling, the dead man's inner ocean cleanses him of wanderlust, his days abroad now a ghostly apparition.
The dead man is fascinated by mirages, oases, missing tide pools, lost lakes, basins where rivers ran, wells that went dry.
He sees his face in the mud of a drained marsh.
The dead man does not plant his flag in the dust but doubles back like reflected light.
Pity naive Narcissus, bent to a river that was moving on.
If there is a bit of froth, foam or lather, a few suds, an escaped bubble, a globule of blood anywhere, the dead man
        will find it and begin again.
The dead man finds it fortunate to have been in the train station when the coffin was loaded and the mourners toasted
        the departed who was just leaving.

Also by Marvin Bell:

About The Book of the Dead Man: Preface and further commentary
Dead Man poems: #14, #23 and #59