THE DAY TWINKIES DIED

I left for lunch, that’s what I told them,
I really don’t eat much for lunch, maybe
stop in the Happy Wok for Dim Sum or
whatever they call that Chinese buffet.

Walk down Spring Street pick-up the NYT
only on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.
When I finish reading the Wed and Fri
editions I drop them off to my neighbor,
Janet, who usually reminds me that she
is a college grad, I forget what school
she told me she graduated from, maybe
some obscure Teachers college somewhere
in the Mid-west.

The Sunday edition I usually finish reading
by Wednesday and give it to Don, the art
gallery owner. I drop-in on a daily basis
to kibitz and see if he has any new pieces
that I may be interested in. Don actually
sold one of my poem’s, he displays some
of my poems in the gallery, 15 bucks.

Anyway, I go into the Mexican grocery
store, I don’t believe the Mexican’s call
them bodegas so I ask the guy behind
the counter, BTW, this little grocery store
reminds me of the Italo-American store
I worked at as a teenager in Brooklyn
same smells of oily floors and fresh
vegetables.

“Hola”, I ask the guy if he sells Twinkies,
BTW, the gays also expropriated this
name for their young-set “Twinks”,
does he even know what Twinkies are?

“No senor.”

12-14-12

How insignificant my poem
in light of parents told;
their 6 year old
shot dead.

+

The flowers are dead/
cold light from winter solstice/
spring brings no re-birth.

+

TO BE A POET

I am constantly conflicted
by my radical sub-conscious
and conscious being
the tug and fog
of the real and the
perceived and how
to express one or the
other or both and how
to discover their symbiosis

write, write, write,
about that dream
nightmare, visitation, apparition,
that is dredged-up
from my dark recesses

sub-conscious you scare me
you come to me and
taunt and haunt and torment me
to reveal the unreality
of the known

see, hear, feel, taste, be,
real or not I am in that
far country.

METRO-CARTE

Turnstile turns on my
trip to Chelsea of
twenty-third street with
west side rough trade
and effeminate masculinity
and uber macho boys
with dykes and subs
in sub-culture
sub-rosa of loco
local ‘A’ train subway
outta to play and dance
and meet and die of
loneliness and faux happiness
of what happens next
of lust and love and
make-believe and don’t
leave this dive this drive
this destination

©TPuma/MMXII

CHRISTMAS SHOPPING AT THE CONSIGNMENT SHOPPE

“Feliz Navidad”, to quick smiles and
nervous laughter at lamo Spanish
uttered to ninos & ninas of brown
skin that Tanning Salon habitués
would die for and their madres
in brown and grey forsaking the
colors of their Mexican and
Honduran and Ecuadoran cultures,
or whatever ‘ans they are from
these,“Ladies of Gaudaloupe”
and their children of today
who view their parents as
yesterday and tomorrow as
new and different and translating
and having become “American”
eyeing used and donated toys
and games and stuffed animals
sold and attended-to by white
haired women with names of
Smith and Taylor who always
smile their Christian smiles and
must be viewed as “THE”
American “blanco”, white
Christian culture afar and
apart from Iglesias Catolico,
no matter, the children are
here and the memories they
will share with their children
of immigrant days
Christmas shopping at
the Consignment Shoppe.


©TPuma/XmasXII