The Book of the Dead Man (Rhino)<\/p>\n
Live as if you were already dead.<\/em> 1. About the Dead Man and the Rhino<\/em><\/p>\n The dead man rode a rhino into Congress. <\/p>\n 2. More About the Dead Man and the Rhino<\/em><\/p>\n The dead man\u2019s rhino was not overkill, don\u2019t think it. <\/p>\n “The Book of the Dead Man (Rhino)” appears in Vertigo: The Living Dead Man Poems, <\/a><\/em>published by Copper Canyon Press.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Three books by Marvin Bell<\/a> were released in 2011: Vertigo: The Living Dead Man Poems <\/a><\/em>(Copper Canyon); Whiteout,<\/a><\/em>a collaboration with photographer Nathan Lyons, (Lodima); and a children’s picture book, based on the poem, \u201cA Primer about the Flag\u201d <\/a>\u00a0(Candlewick).\u00a0Since 1985, he has split the year between Port Townsend and Iowa City. For many years Flannery O’Connor Professor of Letters at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he teaches now for the brief-residency MFA based in Oregon at Pacific University, One can see a brief interview with him about writing in the literary video series \u00a0“On the Fly,”<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0and others at Drunken Boat,\u00a0<\/a><\/em>\u00a0Arch Literary Journal,<\/em>\u00a0<\/a>and Poetry Kit.<\/a><\/em> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Book of the Dead Man (Rhino) Live as if you were already dead. Zen admonition 1. About the Dead Man and the Rhino The dead man rode a rhino into Congress. An odd-toed ungulate in the Congress, and no … Continue reading
\nZen admonition<\/p>\n
\nAn odd-toed ungulate in the Congress, and no one blinked.
\nIt was the lobbyist from Hell, the rhino that ate Tokyo, a lightning strike in their dark \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 dreams.
\nA ton of megafauna, and nowhere for a senator to hide.
\nI\u2019m gonna get you, says the momentum of a rhino.
\nThe rhino has been said to stamp out fires, and the dead man hopes it is true.
\nHe steered the beast to the hotheaded, the flaming racist, the fiery pork-barreler, the \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0sweating vestiges of white power.
\nThe dead man\u2019s revolutionary rhino trampled the many well-heeled lawmakers who stood \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 in the way.
\nHe flattens the cardboard tigers, he crushes the inflated blowhards, he squashes the \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0cupcakes of warfare.
\nOh, he makes them into blocks of bone like those of compacted BMWs.<\/p>\n
\nHe was, and is, the rough beast whose hour had come round at last.
\nThe dead man\u2019s rhino did not slouch, but impaled the hardest cases among the \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0incumbents.
\nThe committee chair who thought a rhino horn an aphrodisiac found out.
\nThe dead man\u2019s rhino came sans his guards, the oxpeckers.
\nHe was ridden willingly, bareback, he did not expect to survive, he would live to be a \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0martyr.
\nThe rhino\u2019s horn, known to overcome fevers and convulsions, cleared, for a time, the halls \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0of Congress.
\nThe senators who send other people\u2019s children into battle fled.
\nThey reassembled in the cloakroom, they went on with their deal-making.
\nThey agreed it takes a tough skin to be a rhino.<\/p>\n
\n.<\/p>\n