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Things We Dreamt We Died For

By Marvin Bell b. 1937 Marvin Bell

Flags of all sorts.

The literary life.

Each time we dreamt we’d done

the gentlemanly thing,

covering our causes

in closets full of bones

to remove ourselves forever

from dearest possibilities,

the old weapons re-injured us,

the old armies conscripted us,

and we gave in to getting even,

a little less like us

if a lot less like others.

Many, thus, gained fame

in the way of great plunderers,

retiring to the university

to cultivate grand plunder-gardens

in the service of literature,

the young and no more wars.

Their continuing tributes

make them our greatest saviors,

whose many fortunes are followed

by the many who have not one.

Marvin Bell, “Things We Dreamt We Died For” from Nightworks: Poems 1962-2000. Copyright © 2000 by Marvin Bell. Reprinted with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P. O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.coppercanyonpress.org

Source: Poetry (March 1965).

Biography

American poet and critic Marvin Bell "is a poet of the family. He writes of his father, his wives, his sons, and himself in a dynamic interaction of love and loss, accomplishment, and fear of alienation. These are subjects that demand maturity and constant evaluation. A complete reading of Bell's canon shows his ability to understand the durability of the human heart. Equally impressive is his accompanying technical . . .

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