The unresolved antagonisms of reality reappear
in art in the guise of
immanent problems of artistic form.

Writing in Real Time

Real time, lived experience: sixteen thousand
four hundred and thirty eight. Aren't

you like the earnestness of the
adjectives? Sixteen thousand four hundred and

thirty nine. Real, lived, gong-tormented, sixteen
thousand four hundred and forty, you

have begun to write a poem:
sixteen thousand four hundred and forty

one. One can take a short
walk on a long pier, reading

books on microbes, scratching wrists raw,
thinking at racial and aesthetic purity,

sixteen thousand four hundred and forty
two. Imagine sixteen thousand four hundred

and forty three, the stars and
the stripes forever, blue sky on

a 29-cent stamp, sixteen thousand four
hundred and forty four. My cap

is on--San Diego Chargers--my
life is gone. But you've gotten

the idea, sixteen thousand four hundred
and forty five, in spades, sixteen

thousand four hundred and forty six,
overkill, sixteen thousand four hundred and

forty seven, up to here, sixteen
thousand four hundred and forty eight,

thank you very much, sixteen thousand
four hundred and forty nine. Turn

the Washington Monument into a maypole?
Humanize the rational? Sixteen thousand four

hundred and forty nine and a
half? Make a lyric out of

sixteen thousand four hundred and fifty?
You can adjust to the demands

laid upon you, can you not,
knight-at-arms, alone and palely counting the

single leaf, falling once, through still
fall air, sixteen thousand four hundred

and fifty one. It is not
that these demands must come to

consciousness, more accurate to say that
these demands are consciousness itself, not

your or myself, the demand to
write to see complete sixteen thousand

four hundred and fifty two, and
yet not be sixteen thousand four

hundred and fifty two itself. The
world, once all behind me, is

all before me, though not exactly
for me. The world is exact.

These words are exact. Only sixteen
thousand four hundred and fifty three

is inexact, itself, deformed rain of
every, next. This is the same

poem, the one poem, the sole
aesthetic object in the universe thrown

down and broken open by its
rules. The puppy leaps up, hoarse, cowed,

needy, grateful, springing out of zero,
you, yours, it's you, sixteen thousand

four hundred and fifty four, your
smell, your biscuits. The puppy leaps,

the entertainment god smiles at entertainment,
the President helicopters--these are some

of the different faces of the
same moment to which we have

assigned the number sixteen thousand four
hundred and fifty five sixteen thousand

four hundred and fifty six sixteen
thousand four hundred and fifty seven

sixteen thousand four hundred and fifty
eight and sixteen thousand four hundred

and fifty nine. I've changed my
mind. In theory, it's enough to

think. In practice, the woman wiping
the stony black plastic tables at

the Science Museum restaurant has two
hours and twenty minutes to go

she told me. Sixteen thousand four
hundred and sixty sixteen thousand four

hundred and sixty one. Does that
man beat that woman or just

read the paper? It is too
late to retrace half thoughts. They

sounded intriguing, but are written sixteen
thousand four hundred and sixty two.

What a triumph it would be
to get to 17,000. I've thought

that more than once the last
few months, though never in that

form, never using the word 'triumph'
or the construction 'What a . . .' Triumph

of the will to lunch &
kill the world to praise the

name sixteen thousand four hundred and
turn back to check verisimilitudinous ink

so close so almost exactly so
with word-to-world marriage as a sacrament

to be placed in the open
reading mouth watering in a dry

month sixty three. Human the life
the seconds of the same, human

the human or cease to speak
the name, dogeared sounds spell the

golden mean out over the Philadelphia,
the Louisville, the thing placed here

to mean to be. Sensual awakening
in even the best books, in

long dirty looks, sky touching bed,
wife's warm thigh here a minute

ago sixteen thousand four hundred and
sixty four. Got a lot of

work to catch up on tonight
sixteen thousand four hundred sixty five

sixteen thousand four hundred and sixty
six. I don't want to cheat

myself of any of it sixteen
thousand four hundred and sixty seven.

But I myself am sixteen thousand
four hundred and sixty eight, the

originary sixteen thousand four hundred and
sixty eight vividly abbreviated out of

the once living past (sixteen thousand
four hundred and sixty seven), the

dirt-grey rubble from the best imperial
jokes back to ice caves and

earth wobble and blood-soaked vegetable rituals
vouchsafed to T. S. Eliot &

Julia Child, embraceable, semi-socialized you sixteen
thousand four hundred and sixty nine

sixteen thousand four hundred and seventy.

Laptop

Here I sit, brokenhearted
producer of American consumption,
paid to write, but
only monitoring the screen.

The tube is rolled
tight to the toothpaste.
The exception is now
the only golden rule.

If a body meet
a body, then ownership
be stilled, and air
open to robin song

sweet as World Bank
letterhead above a loan
guarantee. My needs are
your needs, su casa

mi dinero, speaking subjects
living the exchange rate
every time they open
their singular mouths' dictionary Sixteen thousand four hundred and seventy one.

Laptop (Side B)

Single body single life
is not the way it works.
Bushels rot

on the docks, bodies
along banks of pronounceable
rivers. Soft, large, heaped

round numbers form a
blurred museum awaiting the
triumph of the single,

uncountable denominator. The founding
fathers guard the past
as a limited edition

of statues of virtuous
activity, anchoring the feeling
of free circulation. A

picture of bodily wealth
or financial health almost
appears, floating behind landscapes

of providential malls, where
to park is to
live the Thanksgiving logic

of a progressive history
without classes, hoping for
nothing but the best

for the best. For
the rest, charred blocks
under frequent flyer miles.
Sixteen thousand four hundred and seventy
two, sixteen thousand four hundred and

seventy three, sixteen thousand four hundred
and seventy four, sixteen thousand four

hundred and seventy five, sixteen thousand

A Piece of Paper

White wooden receptacle cut and milled smooth to touch as finger slides along creamy visibility cells locked in sequence supporting the surface above rolling unowned pastoral fields where noon glare makes reading the sun mean the sun blink your blindness inside legibility straight overhead calls figures of speech to recline in the empire's massy shade sexy if it comes to that and begging to be personified used indulged you may it's June and time to say what you like and like the whole thing mouthing your words starting with the lovely body of this one here on top of the unspoken fibers never commanding a just price forced to pay homage to the rainbow in the book construed to say I won't hurt you again violent creation of identity in a sonnet of one's own free will in the face of immediate wrath bad odds underneath the surface small room to maneuver up here too where I write in unstable groups of signifying others and other people who speak and live or not they weren't given air time and paper to ride this recursive point of entry

four hundred and seventy six and

sixteen thousand four hundred and seventy
seven; sixteen thousand four hundred and

seventy seven and sixteen thousand four
hundred and seventy eight;

School

Here is a fixed picture of what I
learned the language is a day taught to
be time and place night is to lay
unisexed heads organically named
mechanically twined to test both wills
walking the canonized street in
ciphered clothes to hand one's life a
degree in consumer senses by sorting
through trays of seconds with
judgment speaking naturally as a leaf
growing to be a leaf and to be green

College

I stands for identify the subject of
desire on the one hand HIV positive
driveby Bosnia positive but on the
other universal dictator stood in front
of legibility's cut edge flanked by
urban heat beneath mythological
dictionaries fallen from the sky or
pushed one local leg over the railing
for self-fashioning the circuits give no
narrative clue solace to be had by
eating light in the movies

Job

Were you born in one place? yes sir in
the swamps under sunlamps in the val-
ley of empiricism holding veined
relics of the old measures moments
spilled for the saga to gather encrusted
with gems a life is a sketch of that life
name over substance Will you die in
one place? yes sir in the swamps
under sunlamps in the valley of
empiricism holding veined relics of
the old measures moments spilled

sixteen thousand
four hundred and seventy nine; sixteen
thousand four hundred and eighty. These

are affects, trance ones that I
say and then embrace to feel

sixteen thousand four hundred and eighty
one. I. Stone washed. Covering word,

murmur of numerable. Children of sixteen
thousand four hundred and eighty two

--boys will be men and never
themselves without a little blood in

the pudding sixteen thousand four hundred
and eighty three. I will never

be but mean mean mean like
a heathen down on Keats' knees

praying to sixteen thousand four hundred
and eighty four. There is no cutting

short the significance of placing this
word here and now as deaths

and disasters finally make dents in
taste sixteen thousand four hundred and

eighty five. Desire itself sixteen thousand
four hundred and eighty six wanted

dead or alive. Sixteen thousand four
hundred and eighty seven. One must

be absolutely modern and not write
sixteen thousand four hundred and eighty

eight. Sixteen thousand four hundred and
eighty nine. I am writing what

other writers only thought they wrote.
Sixteen thousand four hundred and ninety.

Sixteen thousand four hundred and ninety
one. My life is a complete

fragment of yours. Sixteen thousand four
hundred and ninety two sixteen thousand

four hundred and ninety three. An
exploded mall totality shoplifter yelling at

the security guard caught red-handed enforcing
my world sixteen thousand four hundred

and ninety four. Rather than write
out sixteen thousand four hundred and

ninety five I now want-want to
insert a false memory of teen

sex thees thous shirt and trou
and the cleverness that only wants

to come and be done with
itself, O for a draught of

vantage to be able to see
& name the named sixteen thousand

four hundred and ninety six. Worth
money. Poetry is value. Sixteen thousand four

hundred and ninety seven sixteen thousand
four hundred and ninety eight. Now

more than ever. Don't wait. Sixteen
thousand four hundred and ninety nine.

1 6 5 0 0 I
now see balanced world 1 6

5 0 1 saw was my
maiden name 1 6 5 0

2 before I breathed the air
1 6 5 0 3 to

see it like nothing. I &
you. Sixteen thousand five hundred and

four. He and she and it.
sixteen thousand five hundred and five.

We and you and they and
sixteen thousand five hundred and six

thass sixteen thousand five hundred and
seven that. Lllovely transitions sixteen thousand

five hundred and eight fall apart
& flaunt their parts. Sixteen thousand

five hundred and nine. It's showtime,
dog and pony backwards go time

sixteen thousand five hundred and ten.
He does not know that he

is writing sixteen thousand five hundred
and eleven. He thinks that sixteen

thousand five hundred and twelve he
is being himself sixteen thousand five

hundred and thirteen. He places a
connecting log in the fire sixteen

thousand five hundred and fourteen. He
feels warm then hot then cold

sixteen thousand five hundred and fifteen
and exactly in the middle, sixteen

thousand five hundred and sixteen, psychology.
He dies sixteen thousand five hundred

and seventeen. He does not sixteen
thousand five hundred and eighteen know

that he is burning he does
not know the sound of sixteen

thousand five hundred and nineteen ash.
Sixteen thousand five hundred and twenty.

lingo 4

Books in print by Bob Perelman

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