The 3 Corners of Reality
–Marvin Bell

Photo by Denise Jans on Unsplash

The Admission
–Marvin Bell

Walking Thoughts
–Marvin Bell

Photo by Elti Meshau on Unsplash

The Drifting
–Marvin Bell

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

A Man May Change
–Marvin Bell

As simply as a self-effacing bar of soap

escaping by indiscernible degrees in the wash water

is how a man may change

and still hour by hour continue in his job.

There in the mirror he appears to be on fire

but here at the office he is dust.

So long as there remains a little moisture in the stains,

he stands easily on the pavement

and moves fluidly through the corridors. If only one

cloud can be seen, it is enough to know of others,

and life stands on the brink. It rains

or it doesn’t, or it rains and it rains again.

But let it go on raining for forty days and nights

or let the sun bake the ground for as long,

and it isn’t life, just life, anymore, it’s living.

In the meantime, in the regular weather of ordinary days,

it sometimes happens that a man has changed

so slowly that he slips away

before anyone notices

and lives and dies before anyone can find out.

You Would Know
–Marvin Bell

That you, Father, are “in my mind,”

some will argue, who cherish the present

but flee the past. They haven’t my need

to ask, What was I? Asking instead,

What am I?, they see themselves bejeweled

and wingèd. Because they would fly and have value,

their answers are pretty but false:

the fixings of facile alchemists,

preferring their stones to brains.

The brain, remember, is not foolproof

either, and does and does until it can’t.

Sodden, quivering, crossed and recrossed,

the mind can become a headstone

or be malice stuffed with fish.

Everything changes so quickly. You who were

are no longer and what I was I’m not.

Am I to know myself, except as I was?

The rest is catchy, self-promising, false.

Oh please write to me, and tell me.

I just want to be happy again. That’s

what I was, happy, maybe am, you would know.

The Condition
–Marvin Bell

Photo by Carolina Pimenta on Unsplash

Landscape with Open Spaces
–Marvin Bell

Photo by Adam Chang on Unsplash

Song of Social Despair
–Marvin Bell

Ethics without faith, excuse me,

is the butter and not the bread.

You can’t nourish them all, the dead

pile up at the hospital doors.

And even they are not so numerous

as the mothers come in maternity.

The Provider knows his faults—

love of architecture and repair—

but will not fall into them for long:

he can’t afford the adolescent luxury,

the fellowship of the future

looks greedily toward his family.

The black keys fit black cylinders

in the locks in holes in the night.

He had a skeleton key once,

a rubber arm and complete confidence.

Now, as head of the family, he is

inevitably on the wrong side looking out.