DAYS
One word is next
To another, an excess
Of localism, solidarity, and
Vive la difference shouted
Down crowded column inches.
Each voice singled out
By ages of technique.
In fact you don't
Live a life one
Day at a time.
Some days you skip,
Come back to them
Later, others never occur.
These occasions are not
Even up for grabs,
Cause no comment.
from Bob Perelman's Primer (THIS Press, 1981)
INDIA
How much does it cost the rest of the world to keep the letters of Indiana's name glued together and colored green. First, there is the i—n—d—i—a, which should cohere fairly stably by now, but adding the n makes for a whole set of erosions, indecencies, and unmistakable clues that the namers had imagined themselves in the wrong hemisphere. Then the a, which violates the inexact i—n—d—i—a—n by forming the inexact a—n—a, cousin to the even more tired r—a—m—a, as in f—o—o—d—o—r—a—m—a. The a—n—a implies a leveling of consciousness over a wide area. So, you have the search for i—n—d—i—a totally incomplete, and before anything of substance was initiated in the mind, it spread itself out insistently and destructively in an all is one howard johnson orange glow that is called health here, steel mills and florida orange juice, but is understood elsewhere as violence, appetite disembodied, misspelled.
from Bob Perelman, BRAILLE (Ithaca House, 1975)
