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Four Poems by Bob Perelman

ART TIP

                       from Dante

I hear the music of the spheres

sounds really great

if you have

a good seat.

*

THE GREAT PACIFIC GARBAGE PATCH

Don't write

anything new

and don't say

anything old

let’s just agree

that the sky

is struggling

to hold

its blue

plus the ice

is less

spectacularly cold

the ocean

not quite

as wet

what with all

the microplastic

creamed through it

the sum of the packaging

torn open

churned in the water

the leftovers

of the gleam of the new

now occupying its own

continent worth

of surface

a dull shine

when the sun’s out.

*

EVERYONE’S A POET

Isn’t “always”

a little overrated

and maybe a word

that should be polished

and placed

on the mantel

for occasional inspection?

Shiny.

Always shiny.

You’ve got to

give it that.

*

SELF-IMPROVEMENT

Put down your puppet strings

and come out with your hand

sat your sides, relaxed, bipedal,

bicameral, two of everything

mostly. Myriad-mindedness,

there you go.

The rest is up to you.

*

Bob Perelman

Bob Perelman's most recent book of poems is Jack and Jill in Troy (Roof); most recent critical book: Modernism the Morning After (UAlabama). He taught at Penn and lives in Berkeley.

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