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