Featured Poet: Puma Perl

      ​Michael Cory CC



Instead of Suicide

I made coffee.
Read Michael Lally’s Village Sonnets.
Ate toast.
Washed the kitchen floor.
Worked on a gallery project.
Wrote a poem.
Corresponded with The Writer.
Checked on a grieving friend.
Washed the bathroom floor.
Made the bed.
Put the books back.
Hung up the clothes.
Showered.
Dressed.
Walked to the store.
Bought chicken.
And vanilla wafers.
Drank ginger tea with wafers.
Watched Game of Thrones.
Sunday, 2:44 PM.
Still sick of living.
 
Read half a Lorrie Moore story.
Slept for an hour.
Woke up.
Checked messages.
One friend fell down
a flight of stairs.
Another can’t find her cat.
Called the one with the stairs.
Baked sweet potato.
Ate chicken.
Brushed teeth.
Changed clothes.
Put make-up on.
And leather jacket.
Walked to Theater 80.
Watched a band open.
Changed seat because of talking woman.
Changed seat because of coughing woman.
Watched Acker Awards.
Clapped.
Took pictures.
Talked to people.
Stopped at Treehouse.
Bluegrass band, Velvet Underground covers.
11:45 PM
This is what it takes
to be ok for 15 minutes.




​THE STAND
 
On the day after the election
I forgot how to say “Good Morning”
Wandered
in early darkness
Nobody spoke
 
Two years later
I can’t say “Happy Birthday,” either
How do you wish someone
a wonderful year or a great day?
Sometimes I send birthday greetings
and write “despite it all”
 
Despite the Stephen King story
in which we live, despite
The Twilight Zone climate change
Despite the blaring television news
Despite the birthdays rolling on
 
Destruction
runs through my blood
Obliterating spirits
deep as the land
It is no longer
an option
to look away
 
There are short distractions
Red velvet cake,
Alejandro’s songs,
Ninth innings
 
Like baseball, every day
is a new game with the same
broken rules and broken bats
Upon awakening,
I no longer want to die
I want to kill
 
I’ve noticed
that more people want to fuck me
than they did last year
I’m the same, a year older,
no better, not much worse
Doesn’t seem to matter
when it comes to desire
 
The writer from 11th Street
seeks a DeBeauvoir
for his angst-ridden Sartre soul
The poet I threw out
no longer hates me
The married friend resurfaces
as a dark-haired Spencer Tracey,
I’m his Katherine Hepburn
in a rock and roll t-shirt
The comic, the ex-junkie,
the astronaut, the entertainer
All wrapped up
in a Ray Charles song
 
Everyone reaching,
reaching for something
to fill the void of our today
 
Usually, I’d rather
walk the dog
But occasionally fall
for the wrong man
at the wrong time
in the right moment
Because it’s all we have
 
One moment that feels
a little bit right
or at least
not completely wrong. 

​

Puma Perl is a widely published poet and writer, as well as a performer and producer. She is the author of two chapbooks, Ruby True and Belinda and Her Friends, and two full-length poetry collections, knuckle tattoos, and Retrograde, (great weather for MEDIA press.)  A fifth, Birthdays Before and After, is due for release Winter, 2019. She is the creator, curator, and producer of Puma Perl’s Pandemonium, which launched at the Bowery Electric in 2012 and brings spoken word together with rock and roll. As Puma Perl and Friends, she performs regularly with a group of excellent musicians. She’s received two honorable mentions and one first place award from the New York Press Association in recognition of her journalism and was the recipient of the 2016 Acker Award in the category of writing and lives and works on the Lower East. (Photo, Dina Regine)

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