Perfect Air
From The Course
Put book down
As if
Spine up
You think
Look out, window
See what
Shave hours
Where’s that
What’s was
Where the fuck
You say
Is Carmen
Phone rings
That’s then
There the fuck’s
Say Hello
Carmen
Dead air
Wait a sec
Hang up
When can
Lean to
And fro
Bear weight
Lend some
Up late
Then gone
Passing double
Bubbling troubles
Wall, eye never
Lent loan, come
Hammered, then home
Read thru see thru
You do who
Makes a third
What’s second, on
Curve
(Love the fastball)
Today toast tomorrow scones
(Yesterday’s yesterdays)
Mustard summer sand
But said nothing
(Nothing says nothing
As good as hitting
A blank wall at light speed)
As Fi
Saying as
Fi as a
And so ask
(Repeat fire)
Then forgot to
(Repeat fire)
Edge on set
Like I used to say
Surf tree’s wave
Not the same
Like the feel
(Breath covets)
Snow cover your
(BUT)
Narrow path phone tap
Lose the applicable
Some treat outline
Quicker than a
Silk exhalation gala
Only now it’s
You
(Remembering the time)
Don’t
(Notational elides)
Know
(Spell it out)
What
You
Don’t
(Spilt verdict)
Know
(Say AH!)
Twine ball
Twin yarn
And the fuselage
Repairs mystifications
Shout out to
Sullen strangers
Even
More
So
Now
Sounds midday meadow
Tuckered watch globs
Youth is speaking
A void is listless
Surreptitious squawk
Eyeballs
Lurk along, alone
Musty
Taken up rather
Inches get to feet
Thin underline
Breeze wigs leaves
(Come) unclue
(Unglued)
Rustling somersaults
Somnambulists delight
Right around
Rotary, votive
Crescendos don
Incendiary
What would
(Think)
Pony That Walks
Too latte
As in tango with me
And you’ll throw
The dice
Overboard
Schools cruel
Tools enviable
You apparent
Mimic, empathic
Game skin
Chastened
Street quite
Darns universal
Out of
Otters
(Slide, quench)
Is it
Or isn’t it
The moment right
One day
Wake up
Won’t
The gun went off
As guns will
When left
To their own
Device
Color it
Triangulated
Says Carmen
Who appears
Like the return
Of the depressed
In a twinkle
Visit world of
A new movement in hair
Tiptoe each breath
Angling for disadvantage
Via storyboard
Incongruence
Besots debtors
Round about it
As available
No answer
On this line.
Charles Bernstein’s most recent book is Pitch of Poetry, essays from the University of Chicago Press. Chicago also published his most recent collection of poems, Recalculating. He teaches at the University of Pennsylvania.
