Seasonal Colors

Gray November
Black-Friday breaks;
Why do you taunt me so?

White meat of Butterball
sandwiches for breakfast.

Green-backs counted,
visions of broke.

Gold Master Card
my last resort.

Red clad Santa with
cherry cheeked children.

Green and red capped
enlivened elves.

Blue Spruce dressed in
silver garlands.

So, to hell with my budget,
in the black or in the red.

Happy Holidays.

TP/MMXIV

Keypad

Do not disturb
as my fingers
on keypad fly
to my B F
who sits bereft
of my warm hand
turned cold by text . . .

Rutherford Cemetery

What a sad cold stone.
What a poetic name, “William Carlos.”

Etched with dates of
life lived long.

A pebble or a petal
on this stone,
an image of remembrance.

©TP/MMXIV

Ephemeral Self

I know my self,
what I write today
has a past but no future.

For my self
is only in the moment.

I can only write
in that visceral moment,
when that moment is gone,
so is that self
that wrote the verse,
and is now a stranger
to my new self.

©TPuma/MMXIII

I Was An Outlaw

“back-in-the-day”
to walk thru a door
of any bar gay.

Now in these joints
half the crowd is str8.
What’s the point?
“wanna date?”

Cod-pieces on swim trunks
a sure give-away.
You need not be a hunk
to tell the world you’re gay.

How about
that rainbow wrist band?
You just shout
I am in that gay clan.

But, who cares anymore (?)
Except homo-phobes
and homo-amores
with homo probes.

So, it got better, I think (?)
In my Cardigan sweater
I reminisce on those shadows
so pink.

TP.

Love Letters

Autumn evening brings
Back memories of
Colorful landscapes we
Drove about
Every weekend through
Forests and valleys and
Glens in Vermont.
Holding each other during
Interludes stopping and viewing
Just the two of us
Keeping warm by firesides
Loving our own company
Mellow moments.
Nothing else mattered
Our world was a fantasy
Pullovers and PJ’s
Quiet nights
Resting in each other’s arms
Saying little-nothings
Together forever.
Under those “twinkling” stars
Vermont at its most romantic
We thought we had it all
X marks we carved in the Maple tree
You said our love was sweet.
Zany Love.

TP/MMXIV

Joan (Joan Rivers: 1933-2014)

She gagged with revulsion
as I gagged with laughter
this daughter of the Torah
our own Queen Esther
Lower East Side wise-ass-wit
bitchy-biting blurbs
“can we tawk?”
can you wawk-the-wawk
and endure this noo yawk
jive and jibes that pierce
the pride of pompous princes
and pimps a 1927 noo yawk
Yankee Murderers Row
of home runs scoring
with pin-prick precision
Red Carpet that heightened
the blushing celebs who
looked like tomato-heads
with no script to respond
to veiled and direct and
right-on fun observations
and double-entendres
at their expense
in their expensive garbs
a stchick became a trait
that characteristic retort
to questions direct and
begged and self deprecation
masking the confidence
to dole out and take
the rough trade of
caustic comedy
poke-in-your-eye
deceptive lies you told yourself
that Joan saw through and
power sawed through those
petty white lies and
grand illusions of importance.
I gag in revulsion on how she left us.
©TPuma/MMXIV

Robin (Robin Williams: 1951-2014)

There once was a funny man
who met an unfunny end.

On stage,
in schtick,
frenetic.

Front rows disdained
as comic runs to rear.

“Now those of you
up-front have the
shitty seats.”

I now sit in a
shitty seat,
hearing a voice
from behind,
“Robin Williams is dead.”

TP/8-11.

Untitled.

“Your masculinity
is a challenge to me,
manly, muscular, male

your adorable duality
of soft spots on a hard frame,
a feminine side

smooth and rough,
your mass of being
moves primal urges,
quickens the senses

from ankles and toes
to eyes and tongue

to glide to your side,
to give to you,
to get from you

your scent
jolts my brain,
fires emotional waves,
sends me to you

to worship you in love,
to walk with you through all,
to be awakened.”


TP.

Sugar Hill-1991

I.

West Fourth Street
subway platform,
waiting for the “A” train
uptown express.

Yeah,
that “A” train,
Duke Ellington
and
Billy Strayhorn’s
“A” train.

A ride uptown
upbeat and gay.
Get on and get-it-on.

The journey
and destination,
to be free
upstairs onto
Sugar Hill.

II.

The light from the tunnel
is a dark Angel,
that rumbles
towards you,
this Spiritual
that will spirit you away.

It promises
to take you
out of this
down-beat
and ungay world.

Not
getting on the train
but
jumping on the tracks.

Puts you forever in
Sugar Hill.

TP.

Skaters

Colored boy and girl
zip past me
on Razor scooters
in a whirl.

The boy has
an angelic face
with a devilish look
about this (sibling?) race.

The girl, with braided locks,
colors of the rainbow,
that frame her
in a pastel halo.

Chattering in an accent
melodic to my ears,
reminiscent,
of southern boys I met
in my Army years.

As they U-turn
to be where they began,
the girl admonishes the boy:
“Now you be careful,
don’t run into dat white man.”

TP.

My Lunch with Buddha and Zeus

Patio.
Watching.
Listening.
Rain.

Big droplets
pounding pavement
lulling me into a trance,
empty headed,
as if I reached Nirvana.

Nothing matters
except that tattoo,
staccato sound.

I can’t leave,
I am transported
to somewhere
I do not know exists.

If lightening was to
strike me dead,
right now,
my only regret would be
I did not hear the thunder.

©TPuma/MMXIV

The 3:23

It ain’t the Phoebe Snow
and
it ain’t the magic carpet made of steel
and
it ain’t a longing from Folsom Prison.

Ain’t nothin’ romantic about
this son-of-a-bitch.

This ante-diluvium,
ante meridiem,
three-twenty-three.

With an air horn
that pierces ear drums,
as a wake-up call,
a disturber of the peace
and a dream stealer.

This mile long behemoth
grumbles through town
with sounds to
warn the wary
and wake the weary.

In direct line of sound
and Doppler sound waves
that let you know:

I am comin’,
I am here,
and I will
leave you with a long good-bye.

TP.

Fade to White

The surf mimics the clouds,
the ever shifting foam
forming, reforming, deforming,

as clouds above
seem to glide along
on waves of wind
onto unseen breakers,
creating shapes, forms
and imaginative images,

as a sonata of surf sounds
whose tone and timbre
seem tide-timed,

while the winds aloft
orchestrate these
humid hulks
in mute movements,

I add sound
to this silent scenario,
the sounds of the surf,
with crescendos and rhythm,

the clouds pay me no mind,
like “herding cats,”

as I strive for a symbiosis
of sound and movement,

the sun sets,
I am left,
undone.

TP.

M-Day/MMXIV

I was in the Army
and now I’m not.
They were in the Army
and are not.

I am a vet
now and forever.
They were never vets
and are gone forever.

So I memorialize
those I cannot see.
And a photo I see
is a memory.

What can I do?
I served and left.
Now I wear a Poppy
on my right lapel.

Ave atque vale.

TP.

Seven Steps To Hell

Berlin boys and barracks buddies
and G.I.’s in tight twink bodies,
between drills on hills
and maddening marches
in green garb of macho men
from boys with toys
and bullets in weapons
that maim and kill in anger
or accident or vengeance,

there be I,
with secret loves and desires
and teenage bodily fires,
locked and loaded and
closeted and confused,
words not spoken
except in jest or anger,
whispered or shouted,
“Homo, Faggot, Gay”
from sergeants
in sinecures and those
in-secures,
and all the while,

I, a soldier,
with my “A”
pyramid patch
on my shoulder,
and the epigraph:
“SEVEN STEPS TO HELL.”

©TP/MMXIV

Birthday in the Park

The years fly-by like “line drives.”
The “K’s” still haunt me and
the “RBI’s” are few in this
bottom of the seventh game.

I try hard to even the score
with my lovable nemesis, Nature,
by tieing the game and
going for extra innings.

Oh, yeah, I am up there swinging
in this twi-light game.
Going for the fences,
and when I round third
and get Home, I will jump on it
with both feet.

TP/MMXIV

At the Tea Dance

Poppers and musk and
bulging biceps and bellies
and bubble butts.

The crowded un-dance floor,
waves of torsos.

Furtive glances from across the room,
sparkling eyes that mock age.

Gay disco, Christopher Street and
The Castro of an earlier un-gay America.

Free and care-free at the Tea Dance,
with like-minded and like-gendered.

Oh, Tea Dance, this un-dancer
is free to be gay and lovely and loved.

All baubles, bangles and beads
to beckon a boy home to bang.

Couples and partners, honeymooners (?),
dewy-eyed, hands held, happy (?).

Snow Whites and Cinderella’s
escape witches and mean sisters,
that populate their world outside.

Primitive beat of DJ disco,
battered by sound
as waves in the surf.

Alone, I leave the Tea Dance:
“Good night, sweet Prince.”

©TP/MMXIV

On Reading "She Called Me Girlie."

“I came into her life . . .”

What an opening line for a poem,
and a book of poetry.

At the beach in Fort Lauderdale,
with soft, almost silent surf.

With “Girlee,”
I fantasize that I am in Trinidad.

The words bring me there,
the waters show me where.

An afternoon consciously,
living a dream.
An afternoon that will fill my
sub-conscious dreams.

Do I take that boat to Trinidad?
I think not.

The tourists can relish the
geo-Trinidad.

I will live in the poetic Trinidad
reading, “She Called Me Girlee.”

(for Zorida Mohammed with affection)

TP/MMXIV

Flatiron

O’Flatiron, you turn-me-on.
Being iconic and ironic (?)
A shape that broke the mold.
Imagined triangular rooms.

Phallic as all get-out.
Reaching for the stars
and yet accessible,
no gaudy Empire or Chrysler.

Imagination as architecture.
Stand-alone and stand-above
and stand-out.

Are you the last vestige
of iconic New York?

TP/MMXIV

My Dinner with Anton

It’s all happening at the zoo,
I do believe it’s true.
Paul Simon/At the Zoo

“Don’t try to get into my head.”
Anton warned me.
I paid him no-mind.
He was smiling at the time.

Anton nodded to me to survey
the people around us.
Waiting for me to personify
them as he can.

An old bear refracted the
October Revolution.
Silent remembrances of Mother Russia
on a bench in Brighton Beach.
Garrulous when prodded.

The bird next to him
whose visage screamed
of too many empty nests,
a pink Flamingo,
basking on the beach
of a happy ocean,
not wanting to think
of past angrier waves.

Fashionista felines flirting freely,
all painted toes and Speedos
on faux boards in this faux Russia.
Romanov Empress affectations
marred by deep guttural accents.

“So, you can see these sights
through the prism of my poet’s eye?”

As Anton pauses, looks past me, and leaves me;

out there somewhere nowhere


©TPuma/MMXIII (for the poet Anton Yakovlev)

Unspring

I have no Spring this Spring.
The Palms that sway in
gentle breeze,
do not entice the noble bees.

This season, I see no change,
it must be subtle though.

My Bio-rhythms stay in one range
there is no melting of snow.

I chose this un-season place,
the natives say, ”wait till July”
for its charm and its pace,
“you will feel the season Summer, no lie.”

So, I enjoy the scene,
to the North: I will not be there.

(P.S.) I always wear Sun-screen.
Wish you were here.

TP Spring(?) 2014

The Trams Ran in Leningrad

Eurus, the east wind,
that harbinger of change,
comes furiously onto the peninsula.
I can’t escape this wet breeze
it dampens the skin and
inundates my nostrils.

I embark to the
Swap Shop Flea Market
looking for --what?--, nothing.

All I see and hear are,
Haitians hawking hosiery.

Pushcart memories of
Blake Avenue Brooklyn,
with Jewish merchants and
Yiddish and Brooklyn Dodgers,

it seemed so natural there,
but here in Florida, so foreign.

How strange was it for my
grandfathers to sell fish
from the back of trucks?

Proustian memories:
Oh, a Knish and a Cel-Ray
would have put me in a
trance of things past.
How much has changed
and what has remained the same
and why memories should revive
a dead past peopled by the dead;
troubles and haunts me.

Are they still here because
I think of them and their lives
foreign to those outside
the ghetto of Brooklyn?

And the segregated ghetto
of Florida as the Haitians
make their way with children
and backpacks and homework
and an undying ideal of America.

That, I, jaded and unproductive
--as a pensioner-- can’t fathom
except in dreams and memories
and memorials.

Maybe the Dream is alive
to people who live for the future,
when the past
is too painful
to contemplate.

The Germans lay siege to
Leningrad for 900 days.
The Trams still ran.

----------------------------------------

Tony Puma/MMXIV

4-1-14

April 1st.
You know the day.
When all the fools who thirst
for foolish deeds come out to play.

But not I,
I’m too mature
and too shy
and fools I don’t endure.

So to my friends
and pranksters all.
I hope this day ends
sans pranks and pratfalls.

April’s fool!
Of course I’m a silly-ass.
I’ll play the Spring Ghoul
for this too shall pass.

Enjoy the day.
For hour-by-hour
I will say
“smell the flower.”
(of course the fony-flower squirts.)

TP/MMXIV