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Incarnate
The Collected Dead Man Poems
MARVIN BELL
COPPER CANYON PRESS
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Thank you. We hope you enjoy these poems.
This e-book edition was created through a special grant provided by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. Copper Canyon Press would like to thank Constellation Digital Services for their partnership in making this e-book possible.
Dorothy
Nathan, Leslie, Colman, Aileen
Jason, Shiela
The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.
Bertrand Russel
Contents
Incarnate: The Life of the Dead Man by David St. John
1. The Book of the Dead Man (1994)
#2 / First Postscript: About the Dead Man
#3 / About the Beginnings of the Dead Man
#4 / Shoes, Lamp and Wristwatch
#5 / About the Dead Man and Pain
#6 / About the Dead Man’s Speech
#7 / About the Dead Man and the National Pastime
#8 / About the Dead Man’s Head
#9 / About the Dead Man and Nature
#10 / About the Dead Man and His Poetry
#11 / About the Dead Man and Medusa
#12 / About the Dead Man and Mirrors
#13 / About the Dead Man and Thunder
#14 / About the Dead Man and Government
#15 / About the Dead Man and Rigor Mortis
#16 / The Dead Man’s Debt to Harry Houdini
#17 / About the Dead Man and Dreams
#19 / About the Dead Man and Winter
#20 / About the Dead Man and Medicinal Purposes
#21 / About the Dead Man’s Happiness
#22 / About the Dead Man and Money
#23 / About the Dead Man and His Masks
#24 / About the Dead Man’s Not Sleeping
#25 / About the Dead Man and Sin
#26 / About the Dead Man and His Cortege
#27 / About the Dead Man and The Book of the Dead Man
#28 / About the Dead Man and the Continuum
#29 / About the Dead Man and Sex
#30 / About the Dead Man’s Late Nights
#31 / About the Dead Man and the Dead Man’s Beloved
#32 / About the Dead Man and the Apocalypse
#33 / About the Dead Man and a Parallel Universe
2. Ardor: The Book of the Dead Man, Volume 2 (1997)
Preface
#34 / About the Dead Man, Ashes and Dust
#35 / About the Dead Man and Childhood
#36 / Drinking Glass, Pencil and Comb
#37 / About the Dead