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