puma perl: knuckle tattoos

DDAY PRESENTS LES DEMOISELLES D'AVIGNON

2012-01-05T19:57:00.000-08:00

DDAY at the Bowery presents Les Demoiselles D'Avignon
THURSDAY, JANUARY 19, 2012
8-9:30 PM!

BOWERY POETRY CLUB
308 BOWERY (bet. Houston & Bleecker)

POETRY, PERFORMANCES, & MORE!
HOSTED BY BIG MIKE
PRODUCED BY BIG MIKE, FAUX MAUX & PUMA PERL

FEATURING:

CYNDI DAWSON - International Word Rocker and front woman/co-founder for the post/punk, indefinable rock band “The Cynz”, she is constantly writing and recording new material with the group. The Cynz can be found performing at the Delancey, R-B, and many other metropolitan area venues.

The great Henry Seiz of the Cynz will accompany Cyndi on guitar!
Cyndi Dawson is also the author of 'Outside Girl', released July, 2010 by Poets Wear Prada Press. Her poetry has been published in over 50 anthologies & publications, and she has performed both in the United States and abroad. More about Cyndi Dawson and the Cynz here: http://www.reverbnation.com/thecynz and http://www.reverbnation.com/cyndidawsonwordrocker

T. C. GARDSTEIN - T.C. is a writer, copyeditrix, artist, southpaw, and native New Yorker who makes her home in Brooklyn. Her first novel, Circuit, is available on Xlibris.com and Amazon. T.C.'s erotic poetry has appeared on cleansheets.com. She was the best-selling author on the recently defunct Paper Bag Press with her two erotica eBooks, Sandwich Fillingand The Poetry Prostitute (also published as an audio book). Her poetry will be published by First Literary Review-Eastthis month and in March. Her anti-horoscope astrology website is http://pluto-rising-astrology.blogspot.com/. T.C. has given featured reading performances at such NYC venues as Galapagos, Madame X, Cornelia St. Café, Yippie Cafe, and Ding Dong Lounge.

ZOE HANSEN - At the age of 17, Zoe escaped her comfortable upbringing in London, England and, landed in NYC in 1984, where she became a hair and make-up artist for downtown celebrities and musicians. Her first published short story was for the highly acclaimed anthology Ho’s Hookers Call Girls and Rent Boys and she was recently included in the Unbearable’s Big Book of Sex. She is working on a novel about love, sex & NYC. and is the producer of a new reality show “Housewives of the East Village” (in the works). Zoe is an unabashed lover of filth and the written word, likes to talk to the dead, and strives for purity. She still resides in the East Village with her family. For more info, please visithttp://www.lzhansen.com/.

with:

PUMA PERL –Poet/Writer/Performance Artist/Producer/Curator and co-creator of DDAY Productions and this event - author of the full length collection"knuckle tattoos," the award winning chapbook "Belinda and Her Friends," widely published in journals and anthologies, internationally!
http://pumaperl.blogspot.com/

BIG MIKE is the author of 2 books, 81 Pounds and Sibling Rivalry and appears in the anthology One Millimeter, all published by Pretty Pollution Press. Big Mike is known for his performance art and was awarded Best Neptune in the 2004 Mermaid Parade in Coney Island.

$6 AT THE DOOR BUYS YOU A GOSHDARNED GOOD TIME!
3 MINUTE OPEN MIC - SIGN-UP AT 7:45

Watch Live on the Web!
http://www.bowerypoetrylive.com/

http://www.bowerypoetry.com/#January_19

PHOTO BY JODI LYNN CONCEPCION

Homebound - a video

2011-12-14T11:21:00.000-08:00

Reading at The Inspired Word Titilating Tongue Series, produced by Mike Geffner, curated by Aimee Herman.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGmlw7OPRVY&feature=share

DAMES OF DECEMBER: A DDAY PRODUCTION

2011-12-06T11:04:00.000-08:00

DAMES DO DECEMBER: DDAY AT THE BOWERY!
THURSDAY, 12/15/11, 8-9:30
BOWERY POETRY CLUB, 308 BOWERY

POETRY/PERFORMANCE/MORE!
HOSTED BY BIG MIKE!
CURATED BY PUMA PERL!
A DDAY PRODUCTION!

FEATURING:

REVEREND JEN - Art star, author, troll museum curator, columnist, guru, open mike host, ambassador to the otherworld, underground movie star, Voice of the Downtrodden and Tired and Patron Saint of the Uncool. She has a new book out from Soft Skull Press called "Live Nude Elf." She also writes and stars in a live show called "Reverend Jen's Really Cool Neighborhood." It was recently voted "Best Off-Off-Off Broadway Musical Comedy Theater" by the Village Voice. I am currently making it into a TV show.

NANCY MERCADO - Most recently, Nancy Mercado was featured in a PBS Newshour documentary, Special Report: America Remembers 9/11, PBS Newshour. Also featured in The Encyclopedia of Hispanic American Literature (Facts on File) and inducted into The Museum of American Poetics, Nancy is the author of It Concerns the
Madness.

LIZA WOLSKY One of Liza’s proudest moments was being in a World War III retrospective exhibition and strollling past her own work while Allen Ginsberg read to a packed house. She has performed at numerous NYC venues including Bowery Poetry Club, Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Cornelia St. Cafe and Theater for the New City. She’s been on WKCR Radio’s “Art Waves,” and read on Squat Radio. Most recently her work appeared in the Dada journal Maintenant 5 (Three Rooms Press) and in +gape+seed+ (Uphook Press). She used to be production editor at Pantheon Books, and is now a prof. at FIT-SUNY. She is also affiliated with Spiny Babbler Arts in Kathmandu.

LAUREN MARIE CAPPELLO eats dessert for breakfast. Her work has appeared in Uphook Press's Gape-Seed, Polarity, & Occupy Wall St. Poetry Anthology. Aside from performing her poetry at a variety of local venues, she teaches yoga, and is working to finish her B.A. in Creative Writing with a concentration in Poetics. A former New Yorker, she now resides in New Orleans, LA.

AND THE USUAL SUSPECTS:

FAUX MAUX (MO KELLY) – Lifetime performance artist/actress/playwright and writer, she took her one-woman play “Lil’ Red” and a few burlesque acts to Holland and Scotland. Now, she does the occasional stand-up and continues to creates play, perform outrageous acts of art, and creative havoc here in New York City.

PUMA PERL –Poet/Writer/Performance Artist/Producer/Curator and co-creator of DDAY Productions and this event - author of the full length collection"knuckle tattoos," the award winning chapbook "Belinda and Her Friends," widely published in journals and anthologies, internationally!

BIG MIKE is the author of 2 books, 81 Pounds and Sibling Rivalry and appears in the anthology One Millimeter, all published by Pretty Pollution Press. Big Mike is known for his performance art and was awarded Best Neptune in the 2004 Mermaid Parade in Coney Island.

OPEN MIC SIGN-UP - 7:45
$6 AT THE DOOR

http://www.bowerypoetry.com/

NOVEMBER RAIN!

2011-11-03T07:20:00.000-07:00

DDAY Productions presents November Rain!

Thursday, November 17 · 8:00pm - 9:30pm

Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery (bet. Houston & Elizabeth)
New York, New York

POETRY, PERFORMANCES & MORE!
HOSTED BY BIG MIKE!
PRODUCED BY BIG MIKE, FAUX MAUX & PUMA PERL!

FEATURING:

JOANNA C. VALENTE is a native New Yorker. She is a writer who has been featured in publications such as You Say. Say. (Uphook Press), The Westchester Review, The Houston Literary Review, Side B Magazine, among others. In 2011, Joanna was the recipient of the Friends of Humanities/American Society of Poet’s Prize. She is also the founder and editor of the online magazine, Yes, Poetry. Joanna is a graduate of SUNY Purchase College, where she received a BA in Creative Writing and a BA in Literature. She currently attends Sarah Lawrence College for her MFA in Poetry Writing. In the future, she would like to live by the ocean.

JACKIE SHEELER is a native New Yorker, an award-winning poet, songwriter, performer, and renegade. She is the author of The Memory Factory, Off the Cuffs, Poems by and about the Police, to[o] long, a more recent full-length collection, Earthquake Came to Harlem, published by NYQ, and is widely published in journals and anthologies. She founded POETZ, the online poetry calendar, and created and hosted the Pink Pony reading series for over a decade. Jackie was the vocalist for Talk Engine, a popular WordRock band and has recently been performing as a solo artist. She’s performed on radio and TV, and at venues including the Knitting Factory, CBGB’s, Symphony Space, and much much more. Jackie is currently a teaching artist at Voices UnBroken and facilitates poetry workshops from her home.

LAUREN O’BRIEN is a provocative rock poetess and a top act on the NYC underground poetry-performance scene. She was drawn to arts and activism at a young age. In addition to her music studies, she spent three years in the avant-garde troupe, Terra-Incognita Theater, founded and directed by Polina Klimovitskaya; this experience helped to shape her poetry performance style. Lauren later became the poet/lyricist in the band P.O.A. and eventually formed her own rock-poetry outfit. Together with guitarist Thaddeus Wellenc Jr., engineer and synthesizer/drum programmer Sal Chisari, multi-instrumentalist and musical director Gary Pickard, and others, she began playing New York clubs and developed the material for Inconsequential Dream.

& THE USUAL CULPRITS:

FAUX MAUX (MO KELLY) – Lifetime performance artist/actress/playwright and writer, she took her one-woman play “Lil’ Red” and a few burlesque acts to Holland and Scotland. Now, she does the occasional stand-up and continues to creates play, perform outrageous acts of art, and creative havoc here in New York City.

PUMA PERL –Poet/Writer/Performance Artist/Producer/Curator and co-creator of DDAY Productions and this event - author of the full length collection"knuckle tattoos," the award winning chapbook "Belinda and Her Friends," widely published in journals and anthologies, internationally!
http://pumaperl.blogspot.com/

BIG MIKE is the author of 2 books, 81 Pounds and Sibling Rivalry and appears in the anthology One Millimeter, all published by Pretty Pollution Press. Big Mike is known for his performance art and was awarded Best Neptune in the 2004 Mermaid Parade in Coney Island.

$6 at the door
3 Minute Open Mic, sign-up starts at 7:45

Event photo by Jodi Lynn

More Info: http:www.bowerypoetry.com/

Homebound

2011-10-03T15:09:00.001-07:00

"Gilda" by Alan Daniels available at ObsessionArt.com

Got a piece of flash fiction published in Oysters and Chocolate.
Tags include erotica, bondage, female submission, mmmmore.

http://oystersandchocolate.com/Stories/2288/Homebound.aspx

Ruby was punished. She was on lockdown. She could not leave the house for any reason. Ruby was homebound.

As a child, she had never been grounded because her preference was to stay in her room and read. As a teenager, she hated everything about her life so she simply left home rather than observe the curfews her mother tried to enforce. Now, at the age of 42, she embraced the restrictions imposed upon her, fell into them as a baby melts into its cradle, safely surrounded by cushions, tied up in knots.

It was strangely calming, not speaking to anyone, focusing on her tasks. Cooking for him, preparing an elaborate costume for his entertainment. She stood by the window to take his calls, holding first one leg, then the other, by the ankle and stretching it up behind her. He was affectionate, yet stern, aware that she was enjoying and molding his restrictions, creating a dynamic that he no longer owned. Part of her power was her ability to turn punishment into pleasure, any punishment.

During one call, she asked permission to leave the house briefly, just to move her car to a safer spot. She promised to come right back. He considered this request seriously, as he might ponder a life-altering investment. Since he was a reasonable man, most of the time, he eventually granted his permission.

It was becoming increasingly difficult to embrace the feeling of obedience that had carried her through the previous days. She had been told that she would be unable to leave on Saturday, so had completed all of her duties on Friday, moving through the day in a sensual, yet highly focused, state of controlled servitude. She had forwarded progress reports to him, in which she had utilized her writing skills to literately and concisely create provocative prose, instilling layers of suggestion into descriptions of each mundane chore. The writing served a number of purposes, the least of which was a record of her purchases and completed tasks. It allowed her the self-expression that she was often denied, while calling his attention to her creative gifts. She knew that her writing both pleased and awed him, and that he was a bit discomfited by her intellect and talents; he found himself recalling his childhood dyslexia, and the special education classes to which he’d been relegated.

By five o’clock, Ruby was ready. She was particularly excited about the blonde wig. As soon as she heard his car pull up, she turned off the overhead lights and waited for him in the shadows of her cranberry candles.

Ruby opened the door slowly, keeping her head down, her face partially obscured by the wig’s long blonde hair.

His double-take was comical. If he’d been a bigger man, he might have channeled Jackie Gleason in the Honeymooners. He grew more and more enraptured; throughout the night, he struggled to maintain his role, becoming so passionate that he came close to an unplanned, uncontrolled, ejaculation. Ruby expected him to eventually become angry at his loss of control and was shocked when he began to entertain and amuse her, at one point hiding behind the door, wearing a silly grin.

She was expected at his house at 8:00 the next evening. She called him at 8:01. “I can’t come tonight,” she said.

“Okay . . .” he answered.

“I can’t ever come again.”

He was unsurprised. All he said was “Okay.”

“I’m sorry,” said Ruby, “I tried.”

He said “Okay” one more time, and she hung up the phone.

She brushed the blonde wig out and placed it on its stand on top of the closet. The black dress, reeking of sweat and cum, soaked in the bathtub. Ruby turned the radio to a jazz station, threw some coriander scent into the tub and joined the dress. She bore neither bruises nor memories; blankly, she stared at the tiles, listening to Coltrane, imagining herself as a redhead.

Within a week, she would forget his name.

Copyright September 30, 2011
Published with permission from author on OystersandChocolate.com. Copying or reprinting this work in part or in whole without permission is illegal.

DDAY AT THE BOWERY!!!!

2011-09-27T12:19:00.000-07:00

THE FALL CLASSIC
POETRY! PERFORMANCE!
PAGEANTRY!
& MORE!

DATE: Thursday, October 13, 2011, 8-9:30
Location: Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery (bet Houston & Bleecker)
New York, New York

Hosted by the one and only BIG MIKE, produced by BIG MIKE, PUMA PERL, and FAUX MAUX!
...FEATURING THE AMAZING

AIMEE HERMAN is a performative poet who has been featured at many NYC venues and reading series events, including Wow Cafe Theater, Sidewalk Cafe, Public Assembly, Happy Ending Lounge, Sideshow: Queer Lit Carnival, Hyper Gender, and In the Flesh erotic salon. She’s been published in anthologies such as Best Women’s Erotica 2010 (Cleis Press), Nice Girls, Naughty Sex (Seal), hell strung and crooked (Uphook Press), and Focus on the Fabulous: Colorado GLBT Writers. Aimee can be found sucking up subway steam, searching for flames big enough to burn bras and unnecessary labels, and is highly turned on by black ink pilot pens, peanut butter, and half-sour pickles.

KELLI STEVENS KANE - Kelli's poetry appears in journals including The Mom Egg, Kweli Journal, and Mythium Literary Journal. She's a Cave CanemFellow, and an alum of the Callaloo, VONA, and Hurston/Wright poetry workshops. She's the author of a poetry manuscript, and an oral history about Pittsburgh's Hill District. She is a member of the Steel City Slam Team, representing Pittsburgh, PA at the 2011 National Poetry Slam. For more info visit: www.kellistevenskane.com

AND YOUR DDAY TEAM:

PUMA PERL –Poet/Writer/Performance Artist/Producer/Curator and co-creator of DDAY Productions and this event - author of the recently released book "knuckle tattoos," the award winning chapbook "Belinda and Her Friends," widely published in journals and anthologies, internationally!
http://pumaperl.blogspot.com/

FAUX MAUX. Lifetime performance artist/actress/ playwright and writer, she took her one-woman play, Lil' Red and few burlesque acts to Holland and Scotland. Now, she does the occasional stand-up and continues to create plays, perform outragous acts of art, and creative havoc here in New York City.

BIG MIKE is the author of 2 books, 81 Pounds and Sibling Rivalry and appears in the anthology One Millimeter, all published by Pretty Pollution Press. Big Mike is known for his performance art and was awarded Best Neptune in the 2004 Mermaid Parade in Coney Island.

Plus Special Surprise Guests!
Join us at the historic Bowery Poetry Club!

OPEN MIC SIGN-UP 7:45!
$3 Admission, and for that price you can afford a drink!

http://www.bowerypoetry.com/

PHOTO COURTESY OF SHELL SHEDDYSee More

Story I Don't Want to Tell

2011-09-19T15:45:00.000-07:00

I wrote this poem based on a prompt provided by Geoff Kagan Trenchard:
http://kagantrenchard.com/geoff/archives/367

STORY I DON’T WANT TO TELL

I am powerless,
except for my arms.

The mattress lies against the wall,
bureaus and box springs overturned.

Nothing left to destroy.

January light hovers around me.

Sink down to tile floor, paint stains
and lipstick marks reminders
of happier times, but not with you.

Neighbor’s cooking, I smell
sweat and meatballs, room fades
to 5:30 gray, a dying bulb
flickers – I rest my cheek on
the lamp shade, feels like dry ice,
I hear animal sounds, find
myself on all fours, screaming
incoherently into the phone.

You rush home, believing
I am injured by forces
other than your own.

I should have double-locked
the door and gone to the movies,
flew into black swan fantasy,
ate salted popcorn in repetitive
motion, almost as comforting
as chain smoking in fast cars,
any choice better than a damp sheet
on the floor, my belt flying at you,
your hand on my back, soothing
my rage, circular patterns
like your eyes, do you think
I don’t see you, hiding
behind deep blue kindliness?

I would kill for the presence
of an imaginary friend.
Misti Rainwater Lite.
Thamyris Jones.
Janis Joplin.

I no longer seek signposts from God.

I turn up the radio and drive off the road.
Holy markers have become redundant.

© puma perl, 9/18/11

Stalkers

2011-09-10T13:05:00.000-07:00

I have had stalkers all my life. Some were annoying, and some were a bit flattering; a small percentage have been threatening or downright dangerous. Only one has been persistent for close to ten years and, somehow, involved me in this dance.
I was with this guy from March, 2001 through June, 2002. It began impulsively and ended badly. No surprise. It was the kind of ending where "staying friends" was not an option and I would never choose a friend who behaved as crassly and dishonestly as this guy did, anyway. He did not take the break-up well and convinced himself he was trying to win me back by calling endlessly, I suppose, and that I was close-minded and unreasonable. One of the most intelligent things that I have ever done, relationship-wise, was that I NEVER returned to him or encouraged him - NO hot make-up sex, no meetings to talk it over - one trip to empty my apartment of the last of his belongings so he had no excuse, and that was the only interaction I participated in.
He called constantly, sent text messages, showed up at my job, and once he brought a huge bouquet of pink roses to a place he knew I'd be. He never threatened me and had never been physically violent, so I was not afraid of him, just profoundly irritated by his refusal to respect my wishes to end contact completely. He'd call on holidays and attempted to "stay friends" with people he'd met through me - this didn't work because everyone saw through him, and most of them hadn't liked him all that well in the first place.
Eventually, he'd drop off, usually because he wound up in a treatment center or jail (his own doing - I never involved the police.)
I would forget about him, and sooner or later, tell the story to a friend, or mention my ex-stalker in the context of a conversation. If I said his name out loud, he'd call within 24 hours. It took me a while to believe this. Distance didn't matter, either time or mile-wise. He called me in Los Angeles, San Diego, and Puerto Rico after various people asked me if he was still bothering me and I said "No, I think he's given up."
And he would seem to give up for long periods of time and then, suddenly, text messages would pour in or he'd call on the cellphone. Over the years, I left the job and moved out of the area that he'd known me to live in, but I didn't want to change my cell phone number, partially because I have hundreds of contacts, but also out of fear that he'd track me down another way and learn where I lived, or stumble across me on the Internet. (He knew I was a writer, but I wasn't active on any scene during that period, and he doesn't know anything about my books or performances - not yet.)
About 5 years ago, I mentioned his name and ran into him the next day. Now, the stakes were raised. Naturally, he started calling. A Buddhist friend suggested I try various exercises in which I wish him well and let him go and let go of my anger as well. I did this for a week and then I went to Bed, BAth and Beyond to buy a shower gift and he was standing in the doorway. Sometime after that he went on an insane text message campaign, alternately preaching and lecturing me in 5-part messages on a daily basis. I contrived a way to automatically answer every message and have it seem that it was coming from an attorney. After a couple of replies, he must have believed it and never called again. This was about four years ago. I never said his name again until last week.
I was talking to my male companion about stalking and hurricanes - he has many stalkers, but he likes it that way, tells them where he'll be, and flirts enough to keep hope alive - anyway, I said the guy's name. And then I said fuck. I shouldn't have done that.
Today I went to Coney Island, used the bathroom at Nathan's, exited on my way to buy a hot dog, and he was standing there, holding two hot dogs. Like he was waiting for me. It was the ten-year anniversary of the night he stole my car and the exact place we were standing was the place where we first kissed. I don't know what my part is in all this, but I was clear in my desire to move as far away from him as quickly as possible.
I responded to his greeting politely and excused myself, bought the hot dog on the Boardwalk and circled back to my car, avoiding him. I think you can block cell phone numbers now - the only problem was that he'd use a lot of different numbers.
This was a weirdly fucked-up day, even the weather behaved bizarrely. Makes me want to hide.

Photograph Poem #2: NY MOON

2011-09-05T11:42:00.000-07:00

A random photo
Moon over 9th street
So beautiful, it almost made you cry
but you rolled out quicker
than a two o’clock high tide

I started taking my own photos,
leaning out the window
nightgown slipping off
morning shoulder
Soft lens shots
lovelier than the first
NY moon

Late on a Saturday night
talking to a friend
I’m an idiot, I told him
I hate myself

I was thinking of the pictures I take
when I lean out the window
and if anyone would believe
it wasn’t suicide
if I fellI’ll probably live till I’m ninety,
as punishment, I concluded.

Luckily, he’s a hollowed-out hatchet,
perfect for suicidal conversations
and an emotionless fuck.

Labor Day morning, I lean
out the window, black straps
slipping, photographing
the 6 AM sky.

A different man sits on the couch,
watching The Final Report,
a documentary about Jim Jones
and his Koolade madness.

Very carefully,
I finish my shots,
secure the camera,
and return to the living.

© puma perl, 9/5/11

POEMS IN RESPONSE TO PHOTOS: AFTER THE LAST BEACH DAY

2011-09-05T11:31:00.000-07:00

The green-eyed man left the garden
Abraham talks to the waves
Seagulls wait patiently,
staring down the rocks
A girl dances alone,
hair coiled like shells

Behind dark glasses
I crave cigarettes,
anger, sugar, drugs

Revenge

Soon, doors will lock
in 5:00 darkness
Summer destroyed
and forgotten

I carry my chair
like a surfboard,
unbalanced

My mother
called me “Dropsy”

You call me nothing

Abraham and the green-eyed man
are gone, promises are sand-storms,
my lips are scarred but unsealed

With nothing to lose, I drive home

© puma perl, 9/2/11

A SEPTMEMBER TO REMEMBER!

2011-09-05T11:00:00.000-07:00

Thursday, September 15 · 8:00pm - 9:30pm

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

Location Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery (bet Houston & Bleecker)
New York, New York

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

Created By Puma Perl

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

DDAY PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS A SEPTEMBER TO REMEMBER!POETRY, PERFORMANCE & MORE!
Hosted by the one and only BIG MIKE, produced by BIG MIKE, PUMA PERL, and FAUX MAUX!

... FEATURING THE AMAZING:

CORRINA BAIN - A genderqueer writer-performer, he has worked at a rape crisis hotline, a detox ward, an abortion clinic, and as a volunteer educator responding to the HIV/AIDS crisis in Mozambique. A former member of multiple poetry slam teams, he is currently part of the staff of the louderARTS project. He lives in Brooklyn.

JANI ROSE - A poet, activist, curator and performer who was born in Spanish Harlem and raised in the Bronx. She began writing poetry at the age of 7. She is a product of Sylvia Plath and Method Man, Poe & Julia De Burgos. As a Fellow & part of the leadership of the Acentos Writers' Workshops she takes to the the stage and page to share her love of art & words, survival of the psyche, motherhood, life, love and the Nuyorican experience. She loves roses, chocolate covered almonds, dragonflies & Chanel No. 5. To find out more visit musingsandscribbles.com

MIRIAM STANLEY - She's has been published in numerous anthologies in the US and Israel. She has performed inboth countries. Her books “Not to be Believed” and “Get Over It” were published by Rogue Scholars Press.

AND YOUR DDAY TEAM:

PUMA PERL –Poet/Writer/Performance Artist/Producer/Curator and co-creator of DDAY Productions and this event - author of the recently released book "knuckle tattoos," the award winning chapbook "Belinda and Her Friends," widely published in journals and anthologies, internationally!
http://pumaperl.blogspot.com/

FAUX MAUX. Lifetime performance artist/actress/ playwright and writer, she took her one-woman play, Lil' Red and few burlesque acts to Holland and Scotland. Now, she does the occasional stand-up and continues to create plays, perform outragous acts of art, and creative havoc here in New York City.

BIG MIKE is the author of 2 books, 81 Pounds and Sibling Rivalry and appears in the anthology One Millimeter, all published by Pretty Pollution Press. Big Mike is known for his performance art and was awarded Best Neptune in the 2004 Mermaid Parade in Coney Island.

Join us at the historic Bowery Poetry Club!

OPEN MIC SIGN-UP 7:45!
$3 Admission, and for that price you can afford a drink!

http://www.bowerypoetry.co

DDAY MOVES TO THE BOWERY POETRY CLUB!

2011-07-24T13:27:00.000-07:00

WEDNESDAY, 8/10, 8-9:30
BOWERY POETRY CLUB
308 BOWERY
NY NY

DDAY PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS GUNS OF AUGUST!
POETRY & PERFORMANCE!
Hosted by the one and only BIG MIKE, produced by BIG MIKE, PUMA PERL, and FAUX MAUX!

For our first show at the Bowery, we honor women who have held the doors open for other poets through the creation of venues, publications, small presses, and wild dancing! Our featured performers:
...
JANE ORMEROD - Jane is the author of the full-length poetry collection, Recreational Vehicles on Fire (Three Rooms Press, 2009), the chapbook 11 Films (Modern Metrics, 2008), and the spoken word CD Nashville Invades Manhattan. Look carefully and you may spot her in the ‘80’s cult horror movie classic Screamtime. Find out more at www.janeormerod.com.

KAT GEORGES - Kat's poetry collections include "Punk Rock Journal," and "Slow Dance at 120 Beats a Minute" (Three Rooms Press) and her first full-length collection, "Hunger Sinner" (due out in late 2011). She curates and hosts Son of a Pony, a bi-weekly poetry series at Cornelia Street Cafe in Greenwich Village, and is poetry editor of A Gathering of the Tribes magazine and Maintenant (annual contemporary dada poetry and art journal) and is also the founder & publisher of Three Rooms Press.

VIVIANA GRELL - She's the host of the Stark Reality Open Mic at Nola Studios in NYC is a writer/performer/dancer specializing in waking up the dead!! a wake up genie..through song, poetry and dance...published in numerous magazines and anthologies she has hosted Stark Reality since 2006 ....and continues to grow wings helping the young, the old, the numb, the mad ones in heaven and the angelic in hell...write write write!!!

And let us entertain you some more:

PUMA PERL – Poet/Writer/Performance Artist/Producer/Curator and co-creator of DDAY Productions and this event - author of the recently released book "knuckle tattoos," the award winning chapbook "Belinda and Her Friends," widely published in journals and anthologies, internationally!
http://pumaperl.blogspot.com/

FAUX MAUX - Lifetime performance artist/actress/ playwright and writer, she took her one-woman play, Lil' Red and few burlesque acts to Holland and Scotland. Now, she does the occasional stand-up and continues to create plays, perform outragous acts of art, and creative havoc here in New York City.

BIG MIKE - author of 2 books, 81 Pounds and Sibling Rivalry and appears in the anthology One Millimeter, all published by Pretty Pollution Press. Big Mike is known for his performance art and was awarded Best Neptune in the 2004 Mermaid Parade in Coney Island.

Join us at the historic Bowery Poetry Club!

OPEN MIC SIGN-UP 7:45!
$3 Admission, and for that price you can afford a drink!

http://www.bowerypoetry.com/

Summer Solstice! Yippie!

2011-06-24T06:57:00.001-07:00

Time Monday, June 27 · 6:30pm - 8:30pm

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

Location Yippie Museum Cafe
9 Bleecker St (Bowery & Elizabeth)
New York, New York

Celebrate the Summer Solstice at the Newly Renovated Yippie Museum Cafe!

Open Mic..$2 Donation...Poetry! Performance!

Big Mike hosts 5 Gorgeous Girls!
...
MARY RAFFAELE aka Raphael aka Queen Vixen is a former metal queen who had a brief moment of rock stardom in the ’80’s/early 90’s singing for Cycle Sluts From Hell, where she created a reputation for herself by living up to the group’s name. Now she works in the much more brutal world of fashion and is currently writing a memoir chronicling the misadventures of a Midwestern girl who moved to New York to seek glamour in the lowest of places. You can find her blog at: http://darkladymissanthrope.blogspot.com/

ZOE HANSEN - Writer of memoirs, stories, novels, upcoming reality TV STar, co-host of Sex Worker Literati, all around IT-GIRL. Zoe has worked as a makeup artist for music videos, hair stylist, model, brothel worker, Street ho, drug dealer, clothing store owner, dominatrix, & madam. She lives in the East Village with her family. Watch for her new book, Going Down in Gotham, and her reality series, Housewives of the Lower East Side!
http://www.lzhansen.com/

T. C. Gardstein is a writer, editor, artist, astrologer, southpaw, and native New Yorker. Her first novel, Circuit, was published by Xlibris; it’s available on Amazon, and you can also purchase a copy from T.C. after her reading. T.C.’s erotic poetry has appeared on cleansheets.com, and her two erotica eBooks, Sandwich Filling and The Poetry Prostitute (also available as an audio book), have been published by Paper Bag Press. T.C. has given featured reading performances at such local venues as Madame X and Cornelia St. Café, and she is thrilled to be featured at Yippie.
http://www.amazon.com/Circuit-T-C-Gardstein/dp/0738826766
http://paper-bag-press.com/
http://pluto-rising-astrology.blogspot.com/

FAUX MAUX (MO KELLY) - The consummate performance artist/actress/ playwright/writer - she has brought her awesomeness all over the world! Creates plays, performances, one-woman shows, and creative havoc of all kinds!!!!

PUMA PERL –Poet/Writer/Performance Artist/Producer/Curator and co-creator of DDAY Productions and this event - author of the recently released book "knuckle tattoos," the award winning chapbook "Belinda and Her Friends," widely published in journals and anthologies, internationally!
http://pumaperl.blogspot.com/

BIG MIKE is the author of 2 books, 81 Pounds and Sibling Rivalry and appears in the anthology One Millimeter, all published by Pretty Pollution Press. Big Mike is known for his performance art and was awarded Best Neptune in the 2004 Mermaid Parade in Coney Island.

http://www.yippiemuseum.org/See More

OUR 1 YEAR ANNIVERSARY - A SPECIAL DDAY PRODUCTION

2011-05-23T18:42:00.000-07:00

Monday, June 6 · 6:30pm - 8:30pm

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

Location: Yippie Museum Cafe
9 Bleecker Street (bet. Bowery & Elizabeth)
New York, NY

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

We've added a special night to celebrate one year of performance, poetry, insanity, nudity, and blacklisting!!!!!
Four of our amazing performers have been invited back to spread the love - we wish there was time for EVERY gorgeous girl who has graced the Yippie stage with us, but hope some of you willl drop in!
DDAY anniversary is also part of the first Underground HOWL!

Limited Open Mic - $2 donation to the Yippie
...
HOSTED BY BIG MIKE!!!!!! and featuring:

CYNDI DAWSON - International Word Rocker, author of "Outside Girl", (Poets Wear Prada Press), spoken word artist/lead singer of The Cynz, Founder & Curator Poets and Angels Music & Poetry, published in over 50 anthologies & publications, her work can be heard and read on ReverbNation, Facebook and Myspace.
http://www.reverbnation.com/cyndidawsonwordrocker
http://www.myspace.com/insideofoutside

JANE LECROY - poet and performance artist, home-birthing mother of 3, teacher, atheist, vegetarian, hedonist, who fronts the avant-pop band Transmitting with Tom Abbs. Her last book of poetry, “Names” was published by Booklyn. Jane is a teaching artist working in New York schools. At www.janelecroy.com you can get her books, recordings and join her e list to receive poems and show invites.

NICCA RAY is currently working on a book about her father, film director, Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without a Cause). Her poems and short stories have appeared in various publications such as HANGING LOOSE (issues 91 and 97), WE LIVE FOR BLOOD AND GLORY, and faroutfurtheroutoutofsight. She has poetry in the upcoming UNBEARABLES ANTHOLOGY published by Autonomedia and in the next issue of PHOENIX magazine.

RONNIE NORPEL - Philadelphia native, who uses various media to tell her tales: live performance, photography, journalism, and now a novel - Baseball Karma and Constitution Blues (Three Rooms Press). Norpel played ballgirl and season ticket sales champ for the Phillies. After earning her Wharton degree, she went into poetry for the money.

FAUX MAUX (Mo Kelly) - The consummate performance artist/actress/ playwright/writer - she has brought her awesomeness all over the world! Creates plays, performances, one-woman shows, and creative havoc of all kinds!!!!

BIG MIKE is the author of 2 books, 81 Pounds and Sibling Rivalry and appears in the anthology One Millimeter, all published by Pretty Pollution Press. Big Mike is known for his performance art and was awarded Best Neptune in the 2004 Mermaid Parade in Coney Island.

BIG MIKE is the author of 2 books, 81 Pounds and Sibling Rivalry and appears in the anthology One Millimeter, all published by Pretty Pollution Press. Big Mike is known for his performance art and was awarded Best Neptune in the 2004 Mermaid Parade in Coney Island.

http://www.yippiemuseum.org/

CRUMBS

2011-05-22T10:36:00.001-07:00

CRUMBS

I didn’t think I was sleeping.
I thought I was eating cake.

What a life.
Sleep and cake.

I stumble from couch to bed,
try to retrieve cake dreams, but
thoughts have invaded fantasy
and I’m left with tribal make-up,
hospital doors swinging, a blue
van running, keys missing

No cake.
Not even a crumb.

© puma perl, 5/22/11

Dear Somebody

2011-05-04T11:07:00.001-07:00

30/30 completed, have not written again until today. I now have 30 new drafts. Maybe some were born poems. Wrote something just now just to do it.

Dear Somebody

Dear Somebody,

Lunch.
Split pea soup with ham,
dropped green on my pants,
barely room
for a spoon
between keyboard
and screen.
Cold. Heater emits
stale breath, shall I drape
a shawl around me
like an old lady sitting
on a bench
in a park
without you, Somebody,
not even a fat
child like me, dreading
shorts and sunshine,
no wonder
I’m depressed
in May.

Love,
Puma

© puma perl, 5/4/11

Poem 30/30 Absurdities

2011-04-30T10:10:00.000-07:00

ABSURDITIES

I have written 34 poems and 2 short stories about a man I knew for 27 days.

I continue to mistake hope for actuality.

People talk to me. Then I get a paycheck.

Most days, I am asked for directions at least twice.

I want someone to love me even though I don’t love him.

My lower Manhattan neighborhood is inaccessible. All roads lead to Chinatown. I continue to eat take-out from the Golden Forest on Grand Street.

I am saddened by a gaggle of East Village Mommies waiting for the bus with their blonde kids. The prettiest Mommies talk only to one another.

I lie about my age; if I told the truth, everyone would tell me how good I look.

30 Poems in 30 days. Some guys I know always write 5 a day and no one makes a fuss over it.

This. What I’m doing right now. This. This moment, which is melting as I tap nonsense into keys just so…

Last night at the Nuyorican. Miguel Algarin took my performance piece seriously and defended my honor. He forgot he used to throw me out.

This.

This.

This.

© puma perl, 4/30/11

Poem 29/30, Let It Spin

2011-04-29T05:52:00.000-07:00

LET IT SPIN

I gave them all the truth and none of the honesty… Gloria, Let the Great World Spin, page 303

Life reveals itself
on a need to know basis

I decline intervention

Every step hurts
more than you imagine

Wish I slept
like you,
on my back,
deeply

How are you?
Fine.
Nice day.
Yeah.

I have no pets
because they’ll die
before me.
I leave everybody
just in case.

I’ve always lied
about cookies,
hide them behind
the coffee cans.

Just for me.

All the truth
I can tell
right now.

Honestly.

© puma perl, 4/29/11

Poem 28/30 Response to the Shark

2011-04-27T15:11:00.000-07:00

Getting a day ahead of myself. This is a response to an "American Poetry," by Louis Simpson, used by Willie Perdomo in an Acentos workshop a few weeks back. You can find his poem here http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/240770

RESPONSE TO THE SHARK

Ruby True reaches down,
down, down
like Alice,
in her patent leather shoes

She reads poems to Tupac.
Stories set to rewind.
Memories yet to happen.
Lives unlived.

Forgive me my broken words, she writes,
release my relentless voice.

Grace me only with my name.

Ruby True.
Ruby True.
Ruby True.

© puma perl, 4/27/11

Poem 27/30 Lowering the Bar

2011-04-27T09:01:00.000-07:00

hmmmm I might be lowering the bar on the writing, too, just to get through this 30/30. The best way to look at it is that it's a way of committing to a daily discipline, and I end up with 30 drafts, some of which may survive.

LOWERING THE BAR

I will dump the guy in 8 hours if you show up with a fully packed van ready to ride. If that doesn't happen, we will drink coffee on Saturday morning.

She hit “send” and got dressed, thigh high stockings under jeans and Cowboy boots, just in case.

You look like every girl I chased through the maze of Stanton and Suffolk, when my junk levels were low enough to care about it, he responded. Meet me on the avenue. We’ll live like hermits, hit the road like Kerouac.

His driver’s license was suspended. He packed a change of clothes, just in case, and bought a bus ticket.

They spent New Year’s Eve together. Five years later, he’s married and she’s still writing about it.

She’s already had the best sex she’s ever going to have. The bar has fallen to the floor; she trips over it getting out of bed.

The man beside her sleeps lightly until mid-morning, when he lumbers into oblivion.

Recently, her dreams have begun to anger her, centered on impossible tasks and unlikely phone calls from people who despise her. She wakes up annoyed with herself for her semi-conscious acquiescence, and heads for the computer.

This is the last second street story, she swears, no more fucking-in-abandoned- building scenarios. She got pregnant that way once, convinced by cocaine that the police had surrounded the block; she didn’t even like the guy she was with, but there was nothing else to do.

Some days she doesn’t like the guy in the bed, either, but she figures she might like him again the next, so she distracts herself with solitary porn. He does the same.

Maybe that’s called getting along. She’s never tried it before, so can’t say for sure.

© puma perl, 4/27/11

Poem 26/30 Directions

2011-04-26T16:18:00.000-07:00

DIRECTIONS

My blood is my compass.
I learned how to get around from my father.
He never drove a car but he memorized subway maps,
knew which streets curved into avenues, remembered
stables on Avenue C, Bronx farmland, which ships docked
on Gouverneur Slip and which ones sailed out to Red Hook,
called strangers “My Friend.” The only time I saw him get
nervous was the day a cop reprimanded him for jaywalking
on 42nd Street; it was the closest he ever came to a criminal
record. My mother believed I couldn’t learn to drive,
You have to grow up in a car, she said, but I showed her,
got a learner’s permit when I was 19, bought a Chevy Nova
older than I was, drove to Florida, no problem, I-95 straight
through, and hook a left. Go back in reverse. Wish I could.
From my father, who never left the city, I learned to navigate
without fear – I am never lost. I may not know exactly where
I’m going, but I look at the road and I know exactly where I am.

© puma perl, 4/26/11

Poem 4/25 Sleep and Sleeplessness

2011-04-25T07:32:00.000-07:00

SLEEP AND SLEEPLESSNESS

I
Why is it so quiet at night?
The window is filled with ghosts and subways.
If I turn quickly to the left the spirit stops crying.
Or is it the right?

II
The Russian man’s drunk again.
He screams all night. I can’t sleep.
I call the police, then he calls the police on me for calling the police. That’s why I never call the police.
I decide to slash his tires.
There are cameras in the garage.

III
We take turns getting up and going to the bathroom.
Sometimes we say hello as we pass each other.

IV
The Chinese man is off his meds again.
He stamps his feet and drops marbles on the wooden floor.
One morning I hear him yelling, Don’t’ take me away!
The noise is gone, but I can still smell his cigarettes.

V
I like the sound of cars on the highway.
It makes my bed more comfortable.

VI
I can’t sleep.
You can’t sleep?
No. I can’t sleep.
Feeling guilty about something?
No! Are you?
No!

VII
I’m dreaming about an unattractive man.
I say to him, The only reason I’m having sex with you is so you’ll shut up for an hour.
It’ll only take ten minutes, he replies.
REM sleep does not improve my sex life.

VII
According to the Discovery Channel, in a typical lifetime we spend about six years dreaming.
If you’re snoring, you’re not dreaming. Your snoring may also be knocking a couple of years off of my dream life.
Mary Shelley created Frankenstein in a dream.
If you didn’t snore so loud, I’d have written a classic novella by now.

IX
Why is it so quiet?
I can’t sleep.

© puma perl, 4/25/11

Poem 24/30 Like Texas

2011-04-24T06:58:00.001-07:00

LIKE TEXAS

being with you is like being with Texas
sprawling, so large we’re both lost,
vague, indirect, meaty, a grassy plain,
deserted, space to spread your arms
country/city lots of people, but nobody
there, hospitable, friendly, forgetful
big you, little me, awake at dawn
places to park, roads to ride, cowboy
boots, pork sausage, Mexican breakfast,
Arkansas mind, south-central hands,
crowded airports, empty streets, hot
snow, riverwalks, dogs, cameras,
hats, unanswered questions, nods,
teeth, Alamos, knives, day of the
dead, being with you is like Texas

© puma perl, 4/24/11

Poems 23/30 Haiku on Wheels

2011-04-23T07:44:00.000-07:00

Haiku on Wheels

I
Arizona us
Sweet watermelon sunsets
Behind the strip malls

II
Three on the terrace
John between our tie-dyed shirts
You delete your socks

III
Segovia us
Indian motel clerk says
Lots of bikers here

IV
Harley in the hills
Photos in black leather vests
Motel has a pool

V
In New Mexico
We fight over gas prices
The moon doesn’t care

VI
In Van Horn Texas
The Sweet Shoppe is deserted
There is just one bar

VII
Last stop New Jersey
Washington Heights say good bye
Take the A train home

© puma perl, 4/23/11

Poem 22/30 Respecting Your Memory

2011-04-22T07:03:00.000-07:00

RESPECTING YOUR MEMORY

Well, I guess I’m not getting high today,
you said, gathering up your books and sheet music,
we were sitting on Dennis’ stoop on Seventh Street,
I wore a boys’ Yankee jacket, it was an April day
like your last one, maybe a baseball day, I was broke
as usual, Wait, I said, I’ll get us something if I can get a taste..
But where will we go? You asked because you
were always a gentleman, you had a wife and kids
over in Baruch, and you’d never lock the bathroom
door like I used to do, just one reason why
I didn’t live anywhere - Don’t worry, I said,
Come on, we wound up on the same cop line
as the trumpet player from Boston, he had a car
so we pulled over under the FDR on South Street
and you sniffed your bags, always a gentleman,
while we spilled blood and water on the torn front seat
and then I wanted coke, She’s got eyes to get some coke
said the trumpet player and we dropped you off,
you and your violin, always a gentleman,
no matter what, and we probably did a bunch
more stuff I’d regret if I remembered, but right now
the only thing I regret is my failure to follow
my instincts, I wish I’d found you again
Just to say Hey because I always liked you

You were always such a gentleman.

© puma perl, 4/22/11

Poem 21/30 Seeing You

2011-04-21T07:06:00.000-07:00

More than 2/3 of the way there and I dug up an old prompt of Rachel McKibbens' http://rachelmckibbens.blogspot.com/2009/01/poetry-exercise-1.html in which the writer is asked to write down 3 superpowers, write a bland journal entry, and then choose one of the superpowers and rewrite. The following is my journal entry, followed by my poem. Rachel wrote that she was inspired by Louis Jenkins' poem, Walking Through a Wall, which you can read here http://robinchapmanspoemaday.blogspot.com/2005/03/by-louis-jenkins-walking-through-wall.html

Journal Entry:
The bus made a lot of stops. Some lady in a wheelchair needed to be strapped in. I got off at 14th Street and Avenue A because so many people were getting on. I walked one block and bought a medium size coffee at Bruno’s. I decided to get a low-fat marble muffin. It cost more than I thought it would. I crossed the street, entered the building, climbed one flight of stairs, unlocked the door, said hello to Maria, went to my desk, ate part of the muffin and drank the coffee.

Seeing You

I don’t know why I laughed at the bus driver,
maybe because he looked so serious and intent
on his task, lowering the ramp for the grumpy
yet regal wheelchair-bound lady who never raises
her eyes or smiles or says thank you. Fortunately,
I had made myself invisible the second he hit
the lever for the kneeling function, as I’m
acutely aware of my unfortunate tendency
to laugh loudly and inappropriately at the wrong
times. Funerals, obviously. Once, when my dog
screamed as the vet administered a distemper
shot. She’s hysterical, my mother explained
nervously, since she didn’t want the animal
doctor to think she’d raised a sociopath. But
that was before I’d learned how to disappear
at will, as I did this morning, on the M14A bus.
I reached my destination without any additional
outbursts, bought my usual coffee at Bruno’s.
Pedro, the sweet Mexican guy remembered my
voice and did a pretty good job of placing
the cup in my invisible hand, made his usual
joke You look very nice today and we laughed
in a normal way, which snapped me back
to visibility, and fortunately I did look
rather attractive in a new purple sweater
and matching eye shadow, so Pedro did not
have to renege on his compliment, and the day
managed to pass with neither laughter nor tears.

© puma perl, 4/21/11

Poem 20/30 you are a mushroom

2011-04-20T12:15:00.000-07:00

you are a mushroom

you don’t throw birthday parties because you love too many people and can’t bear to leave anyone out you live in a studio apartment with a cat and your boyfriend when he’s in town he’s in three bands so he’s on the road a lot forgets to call you go out with your friends you have so many friends your mother calls you Miss Congeniality even though you’ve never watched a Miss America Pageant you can’t cook you bake zucchini bread and carrot muffins with raisins you’d rather munch than chew you order appetizers instead of meals shrimp puffs and coconut wings you are a mushroom making things better with no particular taste you’re ashamed of your dead plants you caught a mouse threw it out the window hide the television in the closet your sister’s a runaway whore she fucked your brother you never tell anyone about your genital warts your grandfather killed his second wife you write poems about your thighs do pilates your tit’s heavy enough to hold the diaries of anais nin you remove the television from the closet to watch american idol unless you’re boyfriend’s home everybody loves you because you really are a mushroom producing sunshine under ultraviolet lights, expanding fungus fruit bodies

© puma perl, 4/20/11

Poem 19/30 Answer Me?

2011-04-19T17:53:00.000-07:00

ANSWER ME?

I cut my left hand slicing mushrooms.
Reminds me of William Carlos Williams
and his fucking grapes.

My mother cursed me with her unfortunate knees
and a belief that anyone who doesn’t respond
promptly to my messages is dead or gone.
Sometimes that’s the same thing.

Answer me?
Someday I may forget that you smell like my father,
who left me bad eyesight and a passion to read,
Not surprising, given his bipolarity.

My daughter thanked me for Nikki Giovanni and the Roots.
My son is glad that he couldn’t possibly be worse than me.
Luckily for the unborn, I stopped there.

We have all survived despite my foolish efforts.
You answered me and said you’d be hungry at eight.

I burned my ring finger boiling water for pasta,
reminding me of nothing.

© puma perl, 4/19/11

Puma Perl & Big Mike Get Naked & Go Crazy @ Sex Worker Literati

2011-04-19T14:33:00.000-07:00

mAYBE THIS IS A BETTER WAY TO POST IT.

Poem 18/30 Inga's Daughter

2011-04-18T06:15:00.000-07:00

INGA’S DAUGHTER

She was the kind of white girl everyone called China.
School started too early in the morning.
Her mother’s apartment was a mess until she ran away from the group home.
Inga, the mother, kept the snake and cats locked up in her room.
It was the the only dirty part of the house.
China woke up at four each afternoon, mopped the floors,
cooked dinner, went out for the night.
Inga’s job was to go to her program, spend the food stamps,
and download movies. She was surprisingly computer savvy.
The year China turned 15, they both had boyfriends in prison.
China’s got out first. Inga came home and her bedroom door
was slightly ajar, she said all you could see was their feet.
Inga said it looked cute.
The boyfriend was a pretty nice guy but he couldn’t stay out of trouble. He treated China decently, bought Chinese food, told her go to back to school.
She followed his advice, graduated first in her GED class.
Accepted to nursing school, but she got pregnant by the next guy.
The one who shot and killed her two years later.
She was strapping the baby into her car seat. If she hadn’t been so worried about the baby’s safety, she might have escaped.
Instead of getting shot in the back.
Her hair was long with new blond streaks and she wore a pink bathrobe.
She’d remembered the baby’s mittens. It was the first cold night of autumn.
It happened to be my birthday but that doesn’t really matter.
I knew her since she was 14, but not well enough to join the mourners, or so I was told.
The baby’s being raised by the other grandmother.
I don’t know what they tell her about her father.

© puma perl, 4/18/11

Poem 17/30 Inga

2011-04-17T19:23:00.000-07:00

INGA

She wears a boa constrictor around her skinny neck, walks the old 14th Street, placidyls whores purple wigs pimps in platforms, Methadone Program six days a week, all her junkie friends are her “big brothers” forgot her son’s graduation shrink says she’s bipolar I think she’s just a bitch fights for her klonopin script lost parental rights gained them back didn’t want them I think she’s just a bitch her daughter dances at 20/20 sits on her brother’s lap at home she overslept missed high school nobody made her go She slit her wrists to teach the kids a lesson, I think she’s just a bitch

© puma perl, 4/17/11

Poem 17/30 Do You Think?

2011-04-16T21:37:00.000-07:00

Used a prompt from Emily Kagan Trenchard:
Hey 30/30 folks - Here's a prompt: Your first line is, "This is not easy for me." Go.

DO YOU THINK?

This is not easy for me.
I am as speechless as I am duplicitous.
Do you think we’ll ever stop pretending?
Kim Basinger sits at her desk,
crisp white shirt, buttons open,
short, tweed skirt hiked up to her waist,
sheer black lacy stockings, stilettos climb the wall.
She can’t get Mickey Rourke out of her mind.
Finally, she gives in.
Do you think we’ll ever stop pretending?
This is not easy for me.
I am as reluctant as I am fascinated.
Literary auditory voyeurism works for me.
I’ve never been good at relationships,
or gadgets or balanced meals or tying shoes.
I only fall in love on federal holidays.
I am as distractible as I am immovable.
This is not easy for me.
Do you think we’ll ever stop pretending?

© puma perl, 4/17/11

Poem 16/30 Chance Happening

2011-04-15T22:21:00.000-07:00

CHANCE HAPPENING
(I’ve been lucky, I’ll be lucky again – Bette Davis)

Luck - just a matter of chance meeting opportunity. You make your own luck my mother always said There’s no such thing as luck the teachers chimed in, study hard, make something of yourself, You wanna know from lucky? added my grandmother. A nice piece of chicken. See how lucky? Neither fortune nor Miss Fortune, I continue because the option is to quit, Luck never gives, it only lends - that’s what the Swedes say though what do you know, Sweden, you smorgasbord, you Greta Garbo, you kill yourself it’s winter again, Adolf Hitler on luck: What luck for the rulers that men do not think after all the shit I’ve done I’ve concluded that I’m lucky to be alive, it’s like dessert every day, and then and then and then I’m examining a photograph of a hot burlesque dancer, and notice that that the silk patch covering her vagina has slid to the side and you can actually see her pussy lips and WHAT’S THAT it’s the hood of her clitoris, you can see the hood of her clitoris, not only is this girl smoking hot and enormously talented, she wears her fucking clit outside her body, she probably cums the second you rub against her while mine stubbornly hides deep in the recesses of G Spot Street, I need teams of excavators mountain climbers tireless erections I need Viagra driven dicks determination commitment I don’t need love I need a flashlight and a map and a little bit of luck…but hot dancer girl took all the luck for herself that is my definition of luck, a perky, friendly, outgoing clitoris, you don’t earn it, work for it, choose for it, bet on it…it just is. I’d be born again if I was promised one in my next life, I’d be really really lucky…

© puma perl, 4/16/11

New Video - GO CRAZY GET NAKED

2011-04-15T12:14:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42U8uaC-QQA

New video shot by David Henry Sterry at Sex Worker Literati, 3/19/11.

Poem 15/30 cut to ribbons

2011-04-15T08:39:00.000-07:00

cut to ribbons

gratefully,
in dreams,
I destroy
my life’s work

ribbons stream
from my eyes

no words
more powerful
than a sleeping
child

please,
forget me

I am not
your role model

do not become me

no cluster
of letters
deserves
your tears

© puma perl, 4/15/11

Poem 14/30 Trunk in the Middle of the Room

2011-04-14T19:41:00.000-07:00

TRUNK IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOM

Brown steamer trunk
sits in the middle
of the room

Don’t open it
Just because it’s there
says the voice

I open it just
because it’s there

Newspaper
Old shoes

Beneath the lining,
black/silver striped
shirts, all the same,
size Small

A note pinned
to fabric:

This is our code word
When I call you:

20/20

The trunk remains
wedged into the middle
of the room

© puma perl, 4/10/11

Poem 13/30 Making More

2011-04-13T11:14:00.000-07:00

MAKING MORE
(Reflections from Jon Sands’ book release party)

Triple 14A’s meander up the avenue.
I’m reading The New Clean -
circle-eyed dogs, grandmother Grace,
a crisp sun-filled bench –
I believe that you are a great poet
because I’ve said
How the fuck did you do that???
at least three times, out loud,
schoolboy’s backpack knocking
into my shoulder, Adele loving
the last one in my ears

I read, and I remember moments.

Screaming poems off 10th Street rooftops
Before I gave it all to heroin
Writing a story that began
It was me and Louie
Before I gave it all to heroin
The box of drawings I left in Martin Wong’s
Ridge Street 6th floor walk-up apartment
Before I gave it all to heroin
The ghetto dollhouse with the tiny police lock
Before I gave it all to heroin

Windows open briefly, allowing
friends to fall in love with being friends,
create familiy, the lucky ones
transfused with blood brothers, the rest
of us hoping that maybe the world
was wrong, maybe we are not doomed
The iron gates once turned silver
Before I gave it all to heroin

I listen to your brilliance
Jon, Adam, Angel, Jeanann
I watch you shine
And envision the before,
Before I gave it all to heroin,
Before I learned how
to go make some more

© puma perl, 4/13/11

Press Release

2011-04-12T17:03:00.000-07:00

Sent by Michele McDannold, Editor-in-Chief, Red Fez Publications

Greetings,

Why not celebrate National Poetry Month by featuring the talent of a local poet? Below is a press release from Red Fez Publications regarding Puma Perl, a NYC resident and author. I have been following Puma's literary career for several years and I am very pleased to have her work in an upcoming anthology from Red Fez. Her poetry and short stories appeal to a wide audience. For more information about Puma and her work, you can visit her website at http://pumaperl.blogspot.com/. I hope this information can be useful to you.

If you would like more information, to schedule an interview with the author or to receive an advance reading copy of the book mentioned, please contact me.

Regards,

Michele McDannold
Editor-in-Chief
Red Fez Publications

OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Local Author To Be Published in Anthology

NEW YORK. Sunday, April 10, 2011 – Puma Perl, New York City resident and author, is one of fourteen authors featured in the upcoming publication of "Red Reader #1", a collection of literature and art published by Red Fez Publications. The book is the first in a series of print publications aimed at promoting the work of underground and under-recognized writers and artists.

Puma Perl is a NYC based writer, performance artist, producer, and curator. Her poetry and fiction have been published in over 100 print and online journals and anthologies. She is the author of the award-winning chapbook, Belinda and Her Friends, and a full length collection, knuckle tattoos. She lives and writes on the Lower East Side and has facilitated writing workshops in community based agencies and at Riker's Island, a NYC prison. She is a founding member of DDAY Productions, which presents poetry and performance events.

Red Reader #1 includes two poems, a short story and photography by Puma Perl. Editor Michele McDannold says 'Van Horn, Texas' is an excellent example of the type of writing they look for at Red Fez. “Puma's writing is clear, candid and earnest.”

The story is set in the small but enduring town of Van Horn, Texas and follows a woman as she strikes out on her own. It's a bumpy ride but she needs little and takes even less. The fascinating characters she meets along the way might be reason enough to stay, at least for a little while.

“Red Reader #1” will be available for free at the Zygote in my Fez event being planned for August in Dayton, Ohio. Advance reading copies are available for book reviewers and journalists.

For more information please visit http://redfez.net or http://pumaperl.blogspot.com.

About Red Fez Publications:
Established in 2002 and founded by Leopold McGinnis, Red Fez Publications is an Independent publisher committed to bringing recognition to underground and under-recognized writers and artists. Red Fez publishes an online literary journal featuring literature and art outside of the narrow, academic stream and has published over 350 authors from around the world. Poems and short stories that have first appeared on Red Fez have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, storySouth Million Writers Award, Sundress Publications Best of the Net and Dzanc Books Best of the Web.

Poem 12/30 Songs for the woman who falls in love too easy

2011-04-12T11:40:00.000-07:00

SONGS FOR THE WOMAN WHO FALLS IN LOVE TOO EASY

It comes, one way or another.
Won’t let it stay away too long.
Ghost dances, firewalk shuffle,
it comes, at last, for that woman
who falls in love too easy, afraid
to get close to the banana man,
it comes, one way or another.
How it hurts, oh, she wonders
whatever happened to Silver City,
I won’t lie, you are my brother,
lost in a crazy Gold Forest.

It comes, one way or another.
Get back on your feet again,
everybody loves you, nobody cares;
let’s slowdive till we’re blind
race the dogs around the park
smoke up the garden roses.

It comes, one way or another.

© puma perl, 4/12/11

PS THANKS MAUX!!

TattoosDay

2011-04-11T17:42:00.000-07:00

My stuff is up on the tattoos day blogspot today, complete with photo, poem, and links!

http://tattoosday.blogspot.com/

Poem 11/30 Night Slices

2011-04-11T06:23:00.000-07:00

NIGHT SLICES

1:45 AM

Wake up.
Toothache is back.
Swollen face?
No health insurance.
Antibiotics.
Motrin.
Worry.
Fall asleep.

2:55 AM

Wake up.
Empty bed.

What are you doing?

Drinking Coca-Cola.

What are you watching?

Young Liz Taylor.
`
Go to sleep.

Look! Sal Mineo!

3:10 AM

What movie was that?

Giant.

Rock Hudson.

James Dean, Dennis Hopper, Sal Mineo. Everybody’s dead except Earl Holliman.

And Carroll Baker. She’s not dead.

But she’s fat. That counts as dead.

It does not! Go to sleep.

3:30 AM

Are you still up?

It’s going to be 107 degrees tomorrow.

No, it’s not!

You calling me a liar? 107 degrees!

You’re lying and you’re mean.

Oh, it’s my fault the earth is spinning closer to the sun?

No, but you don’t have to sound so pleased about it.

3:40 AM

Are you still up?

Yeah…can’t get comfortable.

Does your leg hurt?

It’s not a pain exactly, it’s more like an ache, you know when something is stiff, and you try to move it and…

Go to sleep.

Okay.

My face hurts.

107 degrees tomorrow.

Go to sleep.

© puma perl, 4/11/11

New Video on You-Tube

2011-04-10T07:43:00.000-07:00

This was the first time we performed this piece. did it again a few days later at RevJen's anti-slam at the Bowery, fought harder, raw, Big Mike pulled a few moves that I didn't expect but what are you gonna do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42U8uaC-QQA

Poem #9/30 Moaning Lisa & Poppin Chulo

2011-04-09T08:14:00.000-07:00

MOANING LISA AND HER POPPIN’ CHULO

Moaning Lisa woke up early, sleep
disrupted by her Poppin’ Chulo, hiding
in the bathroom, talking on the phone.

I’m just asking you if I can stay there
She heard him whisper hoarsely,
but she turned and saw him lying
innocently beside her as always,
snoring, drooling, smelling like himself.

Moaning Lisa examined him closely,
muttered fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck,
swung her feet to the floor, avoided
all mirrors prior to make-up and coffee,
washed her clothes but not his,
still disturbed by her dream.

It was sunny. She’d hoped for rain.

Poppin’ Chulo slept on, hugging her pillow,
she once thought it was sweet, but learned
it meant nothing. She dropped a few pots
and finally disturbed him, he tumbled
from bed, he showered he dressed,
circled the room, perplexed and irate…

What’s the matter? she asked,
ready to fight – Lost my phone
he replied,

Check the bathroom, she said.

© puma perl, 4/9/11

Yippie: TAX TIME Poetry & Performance

2011-04-08T12:34:00.001-07:00

Yippie Museum Cafe
9 Bleecker, bet. Bowery & Elizabeth
New York, NY

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

Created By Puma Perl, Maux Kelly Nolan

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

More Info TAX TIME or WHY IS THIS NIGHT DIFFERENT FROM ALL OTHER NIGHTS!!!!

BECAUSE BIG MIKE IS HOSTING NOT ONE, NOT THREE, BUT SIX, COUNT THEM, SIX!!!! GOURGEOUS GIRLS!!!!!!!

Modest donation of $2 to the Yippie Cafe - support the space!
...
No alcohol, but coffee, tea and random desserts are available! ....VERY Limited OPEN MIC - Sign Up early!

Poetry, Performance, Music, and More!

Featuring the Beautiful, Amazing:

AIMEE DELONG - a writer of fiction and poetry and other random, yet intensely justifiable nonsense. She technically lives in Brooklyn, although theoretically lives in Manhattan. Her work can be seen in such places as 3 AM, Thieves Jargon, and Everyday Genius. It can also actually be seen in these places. She won a poetry prize, and that was awesome. Although it's starting to be far enough in the past that it would be silly to say anymore about it. Life lessons include, but are not limited to: A shit-tastic year makes for grand lucidity. There's more to this bio than meets the eye here www.aimeedelong.com

FAUX MAUX. Lifetime performance artist/actress/ playwright and writer, she took her one-woman play, Lil' Red and few burlesque acts to Holland and Scotland. Now, she does the occasional stand-up and continues to create plays, perform outragous acts of art, and creative havoc here in New York City.

JEANANN VERLEE is a poet, editor, and former punk rocker who collects tattoos and winks at boys. Author of “Racing Hummingbirds,” recipient of the Independent Publisher Book Award Silver Medal in Poetry, her work also appears in The New York Quarterly, FRiGG, kill author, and PANK, among others. Verlee has twice been nominated for a Puschart Prize, is Poetry Editor for Union Station Literary Magazine, serves as curator of the Urbana Poetry Slam reading series at Bowery Poetry Club, and is an acclaimed performance poet with a variety of local and national poetry slam tiles. She lives in New York City with a pair of origami lovebirds. She believes in you.

LAURA DINNEBEIL has appeared on Comedy Central, and has had her poetry published by several universities and poetry journals. Her non-fiction prose has appeared in NYPress. Tonite she will perform her new one-woman play,"The Adventures of Mademoiselle How Many Times," a new work that is coming to a NY venue soon. It's a comedy about American terrorism.

PUMA PERL – Poet/Writer/Performance Artist/Producer/Curator and co-creator of DDAY Productions and this event - author of the recently released book "knuckle tattoos," the award winning chapbook "Belinda and Her Friends," widely published in journals and anthologies, internationally! Creator of 6 Minutes and Cut and many other pieces!

AND...SPECIAL FEATURETTE, ALL THE WAY FROM OKLAHOMA.....

BABS MARTIN! She's a poet, lyricist, and musician from San Diego, CA via Oklahoma. She has just released her third internationally acclaimed CD of Babs Martin and The Trip, “Psychodelic Circus.”

BIG MIKE is the author of 2 books, 81 Pounds and Sibling Rivalry and appears in the anthology One Millimeter, all published by Pretty Pollution Press. Big Mike is known for his performance art and was awarded Best Neptune in the 2004 Mermaid Parade in Coney Island.

http://www.yippiemuseum.org/

Poem #8/30 Found Poem/Weird Pantoum

2011-04-08T06:40:00.000-07:00

FOUND POEM/ WEIRD PANTOUM
(created from email sent by the one who wasn’t the one)

I’m patient, probably to a fault
Denial never stopped a drum beat
Someone’s making the world’s best pizza
Someone’s running with a bag of doughnuts

Denial never stopped a drum beat
Black collared jacket in a steel doorway
Someone’s making the world’s best pizza
My room faced southeast, right at you

Someone’s running with a bag of doughnuts
Let’s pretend to meet for coffee
Black collared jacket in a steel doorway
Coats open, jeans at our ankles

Let’s pretend to meet for coffee
Someone’s making the world’s best pizza
Denial never stopped a drum beat
I’m patient, probably to a fault

© puma perl, 4/8/11

Poem 7/30 Erasure Poem from the Road

2011-04-07T06:27:00.000-07:00

I decided to return to Rachel McKibbens April 1 prompt to create an erasure poem from a page torn out of The Road. I used all the words left, and no additional words, but not in a particular order.

ERASURE POEM FROM THE ROAD
(prompt 27, Rachel McKibbens http://rachelmckibbens.blogspot.com/)

burning city
country river
just as I conceived
it to be

the boy
the common beast
the dead snakes

no remedy
cold hard edges
exposed
on hillside grounds

rose rock
whispered
and left
a lost moon
in blackness

© puma perl, 4/7/11

Poem 6/30 - The Year of Your Betrayal

2011-04-06T09:09:00.000-07:00

This entry was born from the kick-ass writing prompt by Rachel McKibbens http://rachelmckibbens.blogspot.com/2011/04/writing-exercise-28.html

in which she references an Anne Sexton poem, For the Year of the Insane,

http://www.glastonberrygrove.net/reference/annesexton/poems/insane.html

Try it if you dare. I lost my "final" draft which turned out not to be final after all.

The Year of Your Betrayal

We fucked for the first time on an autumn afternoon.
Six days later, on Halloween Eve, I enrolled in motorcycle
safety school and fell off the bike three times.

I have never fully regained my sense of balance.

Purple eggplants faded from my legs.
I didn’t know why they still hurt, or why I always
dreamt of trapeze dancers, tightrope walkers

Trampolines

Scars preserved like apricots
Steaks and sherbet left untouched

New Year’s passed, and I watched you lace
your new black shoes, despite the snow

I can’t imagine what else I thought might happen.

Unsafe on wheels, I walked miles without memory

Down South Street, across East Broadway,
anywhere we’ve never been, returning
to where I never was, searching
for that moment before I clutched
too hard and fell and fell and fell

On a morning without wind, I climbed a hill
in Corona Park, borrowed an old bicycle
and flew down to the bottom.

Then I did it again and went home.

There was no shade on Water Street.

I stood on one leg, like a crane, waiting for the elevator.

I felt a little bit purple, but nothing hurt.

© puma perl, 4/6/11

Poem #5/30 BINGO

2011-04-05T12:13:00.000-07:00

"Faced with such paradoxes, most of us choose to accept the default
setting that makes life easiest, while reducing our exposure to
ridicule. " prompt sent by Rob Plena Irizarry

BINGO

The boys hissed fat ass, fat ass at me all summer long.

Once, I drew the winning BINGO card, but I stayed in my seat staring
at my dirty ripped white Keds while they called out my numbers.

O64. N23. B7.

Fat ass. Fat ass. Fat ass.

The prize was in a gift-wrapped box.

I wanted it badly, but my short shorts made my ass look even fatter.

I could not walk across that room.

Eventually, they gave up searching for the prize winner.

The counselor probably kept it for herself.

It took some time to learn that my big lovely ass was a gift,
greater than the other girls’ skinny legs and straight hair.

© puma perl, 4/5/11

Poem #4 - An Erasure Poem

2011-04-04T06:13:00.000-07:00

An Erasure Poem is a poem where you take a text, any text, black out or erase all of the words you don't want, and build a poem from what's left.
This poem was built from an article in the AAA Car & Drive magazine about games to play on the road when your radio breaks. The last time my radio broke on the road, I fixed it by banging the console with a hammer. Eventually, I broke the console.

Erasure Poem from AAA Car & Travel

Radio road trips
My little sister imagines music

We set out
on an overnight drive

Pass the time
Reminisce
Plan the future

Leave a void

Things to say
run out

Forever to cross
Virginia

A simple game
we played as kids

Whizzed by the dial

Going to a picnic
talk about food

Games
Memory

Banana and asparagus

A virtual menu

Whoever uncovers the chain
Wins

© puma perl, 4/4/11

Poem #3 Pantoum for Love

2011-04-03T06:18:00.000-07:00

No 30/30 would be complete withoout a pantoum.

Pantoum for love

Do you love me? Do you love me?
Did I ever say I didn’t?
No, but I thought you couldn’t.
That didn’t mean I wouldn’t.

Did I ever say I didn’t?
Perhaps while I was sleeping?
No, but I thought you couldn’t.
I drank ginger tea with honey.

Perhaps while I was sleeping?
I forgot to change the sheets.
I drank ginger tea with honey.
They stuck and smelled of you.

I forgot to change the sheets.
And I didn’t do the laundry.
They stuck and smelled of you.
A little like my father.

And I didn’t do the laundry.
I finished all the soda.
A little like my father.
I’ll buy you some tomorrow.

I finished all the soda.
Don’t know why I’m always thirsty.
I’ll buy you some tomorrow.
Do you think we’ll be together?

Don’t know why I’m always thirsty.
Your name sticks to my tongue.
Do you think we’ll be together?
For as long as we are breathing.

Your name sticks to my tongue.
I wish that I could change it.
For as long as we are breathing,
Do you love me? Do you love me?

© puma perl, 4/3/11

Poem #2 Romeo's Poem

2011-04-02T07:48:00.001-07:00

ROMEO’S POEM

remember
we are nothing

more

nothing more than visitors

eyes meet
softly
in the big chair

learn the word for mommy

just a bunch of letters

love is your finger
wrapped around my rings

you still don’t know
where you end
and space begins

soon,
you will smile
across your shoulder

and race through
the world

© puma perl, 4/2/11

Poem #1 - Borderline

2011-04-01T11:35:00.000-07:00

OK I am going to do the 30/30 for National Poetry Month - it's sort of a ritual; by May 1 I will have at the end have 30 pieces, and I will actually like a couple of them.
I haven't been writing much poetry, mostly prose and performance pieces, so these poems may be weird. This is the first one.

BORDERLINE

April again
A poem a day.

Madonna’s stuck in my head

Borderline
Borderline

Suddenly, Borderline
is the most meaningful piece of work
I have ever encountered

You just keep on pushing my love over the borderline

I surrender.
Never will I write a line so concise,
so powerful, so revealing…

Something in the way you love me won’t let me be

Yes!
Who needs couples counseling?
Who needs therapy?

Chubby, sleazy, social climbing Madonna has saved me!

The only problem is that Madonna no longer exists,
she’s morphed into an anorexic children’s book writing anglophile
stealing African kids sweeter than her own home-grown sociopaths…

Borderline feels like I’m going to lose my mind

Borderline
Borderline

I never crossed over,
still worship trash and tackiness
and the memory of teen-age Madonnas
wandering malls in black lace and fingerless gloves
dreaming of Danceteria while the real Madonna
cruised Avenue D with her windows wide open

Something in your eyes is makin such a fool of me

Borderline
Borderline
Borderline

© puma perl, 4/1/11

Notes on Stupidity

2011-03-31T14:43:00.000-07:00

STUPIDITY: AN EXPLORATION

You’re not stupid, said my Aunt Molly.

Of course not, why would I be?

Your mother always said you were stupid, but you’re not stupid at all. You’re very smart!

Don’t listen to what Jeanette said! Aunt Rhoda chimed in. Your mother was always ….um…different.

TRANSMISSION

Stupidity is not transmitted through saliva/
Stupidity is not transmitted through French kissing/
Strands of stupidity are present only in minute amounts/
Insufficient to label saliva as a dangerous fluid/

MORE NOTES ON STUPIDITY

Little Cassie has more brains in her pinky finger than you have in your entire body, said my mother.

“Little Cassie” was my youngest cousin and I wouldn’t have minded the insult as much if she wasn’t so dim-witted.

Furthermore, my mother persisted in calling her “Little Cassie” despite the fact that she developed a pear shape by the age of twelve and had three kids before she turned twenty.

Never mind all that, said my mother. She’s smarter than you’ll ever be.

FUN FACTS ABOUT TRANSMISSION

Semen contains insufficient strands of stupidity, but is loaded with obsessive/compulsive disorders!

Vaginal fluids carry zero stupidity but you may be justifiably wary of contraction of poor judgment and unexplainable jealous rages!

Sweat is loaded with stupidity, but must be diluted in a human growth hormone cocktail in order to be passed on!

Saliva will not transmit stupidity, although deep kissing may temporarily block neurons of brilliance, causing the recipient to assume many of the idiotic characteristics of the donor.

STUPIDITY AGAIN

I think you’re a little retarded, my mother said seriously, when I burnt my tongue on hot cocoa or misspelled a word.

I hid out in the library, reading books selected for me by the lesbian librarian, Miss Kaye, until we fell out because I desperately wanted to read Tropic of Cancer and she wouldn’t give me permission to borrow it from the adult section.

I smuggled the book out when she wasn’t looking and read it in the candy store.

Boys hung out in front, smoking cigarettes and punching one another.

Never returned to the library.

TRANSMISSION SUMMATION

It is imposible to transmit either pure stupidity or uncut brilliance through body fluids.

Genius is undetectable; however, when engaging in oral sex, the genius is often blinded by the stupid, leaving pockets of profound density, sometimes misdiagnosed as brain lesions.

Additional complications may include outbreaks of senselessness, similar to common skin rashes and allergic reactions. Bursts of creative genius mixed with Benadryl may relieve symptoms.

Prolonged, constant contact between the brilliant and the intensely stupid may cause permanent damage to both parties.

It is therefore recommended that the window be left open when the brilliant and the stupid exchange bodily fluids.

Or, better yet, the door.

Journal of Heroin Love Songs

2011-03-27T08:26:00.000-07:00

Thank you JACk hENRY for starting up one of my two favorite online Journals again (the other is Jack Marlowe's Gutter Eloquence, referenced in my previous post), the Journal of Heroin Love Songs and for choosing three of mine to publish first.

This is the link...http://heroinlovesongs1.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/puma-perl/

The first one is dedicated to my German Friend, Golde...appropriately named Hot German Chick!

Hot German Chick

Happy umbrellas cover street endings
on Broome and we make more fun
more fun more fun, stand naked
on deserted streets, I will change
the sheets when I return and you
will make more fun, more fun

Not entirely his or mine, lies
uncover truth on broken beds,
the couch is fully dressed
I wear pillowcases, you’re a peek
a boo girl, crazy genius him, you say,
more fun make, more fun more fun

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dedicated Dope Fiends
Before technology,
there were no cell phones

Hell,
we didn’t even have land lines
except for times of great scores
or unusual industriousness

They never lasted
and eventually wires
were torn out of walls,
used to unclog works
copper sold for pennies

Candles lit half empty
stairwells, climbed six flights
or waited for buckets
to drop before cries
of bajando hit stale air

One guy sat on an easy chair,
glassine bags stashed
between bricks

Sometimes a hand
came up
from a broken toilet

On Second Street.
we climbed through holes
in abandoned buildings

Property values
no longer allow space
for zombies or welfare

NYU grads pay thousands,
live in rooms haunted
by dope fiend eyes, shared
needles, OD’s, dead junkies
saved by their partners,
stories of lifeless bodies
tossed from windows
highly exaggerated

I was there for 20 years,
even I would have noticed

Only passion replaces drugs.

Everything else
is just another dead-end
choice.

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

Death by F Train
I’ve heard that on a near daily basis
somebody commits suicide
by jumping beneath an F train.

Always, an F train.

The heat index is 107,
my hair is frizzy, and I wonder
if today might be my turn
to play Death by F train.

I am talked out of it.
It would cause subway havoc,
I’m told, endless circulatory re-routing;
people would not reach the library;
a man might kill his wife because
he promised he would if she was late
just one more time.

It would all be my fault.
Again.

I guess I’ll get through another day,
body parts intact, mind scrambled,
like yesterday’s Church Avenue

3 Poems in Gutter Eloquence Magazine

2011-03-01T14:14:00.000-08:00

Gutter Eloquence is my favorite online zine. Editor Jack Marlowe is my kind of guy. Mean, gravelly and big. Actually, I've met him, in Texas. Everything's bigger in Texas. Or so they say.
http://www.guttereloquence.com/issue14/puma14a.html

Yippie Tonight!

2011-02-21T08:49:00.000-08:00

ALL THE PRESIDENTS WOMEN, POETRY AND PERFORMANCE

Yippie Museum Cafe
9 Bleecker Street, bet. Bowery & Elizabeth
New York, NY

Another DDAY Production!

No admission or minimum, please donate $3 or so to the Yippie Cafe - support the space!

No alcohol, but coffee, tea and random desserts are available!
Limited OPEN MIC - Sign Up early!

Poetry, Performance, Music, and More!
Hosted by the one and only BIG MIKE!

Featuring the Beautiful, Amazing:

FAUX MAUX (Mo Kelly) - The consummate performance artist/actress/ playwright/writer - she has brought her awesomeness all over the world! Creates plays, performances, one-woman shows, and creative havoc of all kinds!!!! Author of NUDE ARTIST MODEL and many other performance pieces! A member of the DDAY Productions trio!

FIONA HELMSLEY - a thirty- something momshell, navel-gazer and recovering fun slut. Her first book, There Are A Million Stories In The Naked City When You’re A Girl Who Gets Naked In The Naked City was released last year. A writer of creative non- fiction and poetry, her work can be found scattered about the print and online worlds while her fashion sense stays static at whatfionaworetoday.tumblr.com.

NICOLE PEYRAFITTE - a performance artist born and raised in the French Pyrenees. She considers herself a Gasco-Rican (1/2 Gascon, 1/2 American) & citizen of Brooklyn. Her work draws on her eclectic heritage and addresses the experiences of negotiating her identity across two continents and four languages. Peyrafitte pursues related multi-cultural and multi-media investigations inspired by places, history, and gastronomy often integrate her voice, texts, visuals and cooking. She has two CD’s out “The Bi-Continental Chowder” & “Whisk! Don’t Churn”.

PUMA PERL – Poet/Writer/Performance Artist/Producer/Curator and co-creator of DDAY Productions and this event - author of the recently released book "knuckle tattoos," the award winning chapbook "Belinda and Her Friends," widely published in journals and anthologies, internationally! Creator of 6 Minutes and Cut and many other pieces!

REBECCA SCHUMEJDA - the author of Falling Forward, a full-length collection of poems (sunnyoutside, 2009); The Map of Our Garden (verve bath, 2009); Dream Big Work Harder (sunnyoutside press 2006); The Tear Duct of the Storm (Green Bean Press, 2001); and the poem "Logic" on a postcard (sunnyoutside). You can find her online at www.rebeccaschumejda.com. Currently, she is working on a collection of poems exploring the pool hall subculture, inspired by her short-lived experience as a co-owner of a pool hall.

BIG MIKE is the author of 2 books, 81 Pounds and Sibling Rivalry and appears in the anthology One Millimeter, all published by Pretty Pollution Press. Big Mike is known for his performance art and was awarded Best Neptune in the 2004 Mermaid Parade in Coney Island.

http://www.yippiemuseum.org/

New Poem

2011-02-13T08:40:00.001-08:00

Only writing about one a week lately. This is it, maybe a few more edits to come.

THAT CRAZY GOMEZ FAMILY

Crossing the plaza with my beautiful young husband
Pink Houses, East New York, I was twenty-two,
second child on the way, heard that hair dye
hurts babies, so I let the wild silver streak
through my black curls, neighbors watched
and gossiped, You know the brother from 2H?
His wife’s a vieja with white hair!

Don’t listen to them! sniffed my sister-in-law,
and she turned off her favorite movie,
opened the kitchen window and yelled,
We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore!

Go ahead, your turn, she said, and we all
screamed into the courtyard, people laughed,
It’s just that crazy Gomez family again, all in fun
until the pot hit the pavement, and our party
ended like they all did in those days…
police sirens, bloody heads, fists cuffed, bail money

Friday nights, how quickly the sky fell into Saturday
I remember Carmen’s café con leche,
bunk beds and linoleum, long subway rides
back to my lower east side rooms, and then..
junkie death masks knocked, I answered, yes,
come in, life only lasts a minute, but
I was wrong again, neither my tracks
nor my memory expired

I still face the wall, close my eyes,
morning turns my face to glass,
my blood’s a transient boarder,
my body’s single room occupancy, doubles
for rent, my thoughts are king-sized lies,
the windows are nailed shut, the Gomez
family moved to Florida, my back’s
against walls, doors, and yesterday’s
windows, didn’t know it would hurt,
didn’t know it would hurt so much

Across the river, I hear your warning:
The tides turn, Puma, the tides turn…

Coney Island is for Lovers

2011-02-12T06:45:00.000-08:00

I have not one, but two love stories on the blog and the video. One is an ex-boyfriend and the story of how we met at the Siren Festival in Coney Island. The other is me and Big Mike and the Mermaid Parade.

http://www.lolasdiary.com/puma-perl-big-mike/

I included photos to accompany the story and am now shown, breasts hanging like a National Geographic centerfold. They didn't look so bad in green, but the ones with the body paint dripping off are rough. She didn't include the photo where we look the happiest in the blog, but it's in the video.

The story of me and my ex-boyfriend, Louie, is here:
http://www.lolasdiary.com/puma-and-louie/

It's a simpler story and the ending is that it ended. I don't have an ending with Big Mike yet.

There is a video too.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/video/video.php?v=10150099624409323&oid=138587312872199&comments

Coincidentally, I know the winners of the love story contest, Christine and Chris. It is a really sweet story. Mine is more bittersweet, one relationship gone and the other - future unknown at this point. I probably have done everything possible to sabotage and self-sabotage. I have acted as impulsively as I did sending in those photos, which are also in the window of the Broome Street location. I don't feel brave at all right now.

ALL THE PRESIDENTS WOMEN

2011-01-29T09:08:00.001-08:00

Next show at the Yippie! Presidents Day, 2/21/11! 6:30-8:30!

Yippie Museum Cafe, 9 Bleecker St, bet Bowery & Elizabeth, NYC

FREE, but please throw something in the can for the Yippies! Coffee, tea, soft beverages available. Limited open mic, sign up early!

Poetry, Performance, Music, and More!
...Hosted by the one and only BIG MIKE!
...
Featuring the Beautiful, Amazing:

FAUX MAUX (Mo Kelly) - The consummate performance artist/actress/ playwright/writer - she has brought her awesomeness all over the world! Creates plays, performances, one-woman shows, and creative havoc of all kinds!!!! Author of NUDE ARTIST MODEL and many other performance pieces! A member of the DDAY Productions trio!

FIONA HELMSLEY - a thirty- something momshell, navel-gazer and recovering fun slut. Her first book, There Are A Million Stories In The Naked City When You’re A Girl Who Gets Naked In The Naked City was released last year. A writer of creative non- fiction and poetry, her work can be found scattered about the print and online worlds while her fashion sense stays static at whatfionaworetoday.tumblr.com.

NICOLE PEYRAFITTE - a performance artist born and raised in the French Pyrenees. She considers herself a Gasco-Rican (1/2 Gascon, 1/2 American) & citizen of Brooklyn. Her work draws on her eclectic heritage and addresses the experiences of negotiating her identity across two continents and four languages. Peyrafitte pursues related multi-cultural and multi-media investigations inspired by places, history, and gastronomy often integrate her voice, texts, visuals and cooking. She has two CD’s out “The Bi-Continental Chowder” & “Whisk! Don’t Churn”.

PUMA PERL – Poet/Writer/Performance Artist/Producer/Curator and co-creator of DDAY Productions and this event - author of the recently released book "knuckle tattoos," the award winning chapbook "Belinda and Her Friends," widely published in journals and anthologies, internationally! Creator of 6 Minutes and Cut and many other pieces!

REBECCA SCHUMEJDA - the author of Falling Forward, a full-length collection of poems (sunnyoutside, 2009); The Map of Our Garden (verve bath, 2009); Dream Big Work Harder (sunnyoutside press 2006); The Tear Duct of the Storm (Green Bean Press, 2001); and the poem "Logic" on a postcard (sunnyoutside). You can find her online at www.rebeccaschumejda.com. Currently, she is working on a collection of poems exploring the pool hall subculture, inspired by her short-lived experience as a co-owner of a pool hall.

BIG MIKE is the author of 2 books, 81 Pounds and Sibling Rivalry and appears in the anthology One Millimeter, all published by Pretty Pollution Press. Big Mike is known for his performance art and was awarded Best Neptune in the 2004 Mermaid Parade in Coney Island.See More

Without Scissors

2011-01-21T06:12:00.000-08:00

The performance is the relationship.
Does that mean that the relationship is a performance?
It's acting. It's real. Good acting is truth. Good writing is truth.
Love/Violence is a new piece. I am afraid to show it to my (performance) partner. It is raw and exposes nerves guised in words and humor.
In "Scissors and Whoring" I read a piece about how it feels to sell yourself and your soul piece by piece while my partner cut my clothes off, wrote "whore" and "slut" on my body with a black sharpie and took photographs. I posted a photo on facebook and my account was immediately shut down.
In the new piece, there will be no scissors or sharpies. Maybe a camera.
There is compromise in the partnership but not in the piece.
Can the partnership survive the performances? Can we perform and produce without the partnership?
The boundaries of life and performance are fluid. Sometimes too much is exposed. Sometimes it feels courageous, sometimes it feels insane.

Love/Violence

2011-01-21T05:46:00.000-08:00

The performance is the relationship.
Does that mean that the relationship is a performance?
It's acting. It's real. Good acting is truth. Good writing is truth.
Love/Violence is a new piece. I am afraid to show it to my (performance) partner. It is raw and exposes nerves guised in words and humor.
In "Scissors and Whoring" I read a piece about how it feels to sell yourself and your soul piece by piece while my partner cut my clothes off, wrote "whore" and "slut" on my body with a black sharpie and took photographs. I posted a photo on facebook and my account was immediately shut down.
There is compromise in the partnership but not in the piece.
Can the partnership survive the performances? Can we perform and produce without the partnership?

STAS NUKE

2011-01-19T05:14:00.000-08:00

Stas Nuke and Shel Sheddy are two of the great photographers who showed up at the Yippie and generously documented the night. I haven't gotten any of Shel's yet, but here are a few from Stas.

WE HAD A DREAM COME TRUE

2011-01-18T12:00:00.000-08:00

Best night of the DDAY Productions series EVER.
Not only did we have amazing features, some of the best performance artists in the world did the open mic, and two great photographers showed up and documented the entire event. I haven't gotten their pics yet, so am posting some of mine.

WE HAVE A DREAM, 1/17 at the Yippie

2011-01-16T09:52:00.000-08:00

Pics from DDAY Productions at the Yippie Museum Cafe!

Puma Perl and Big Mike: Dr. Zhivago, Lara, and the Dead Poets

2011-01-15T09:07:00.000-08:00

As Promised: WE have passed 750 views, so will be offering an encore performance at our monthly event at the Yippie Cafe - see previous post for details!

WE HAVE A DREAM

2011-01-15T08:46:00.000-08:00

OUR NEXT EVENT
Monday, January 17, 2011 6:30-8:30

Yippie Museum Cafe 9 Bleecker Street (bet Bowery and Elizabeth) New York, NY

FREE FREE FREEEEEE
(but PLEASE throw something in the can at the door! Support the space!)
No alcohol, but coffee, tea and random desserts are available! ...

Limited OPEN MIC - Sign Up early!
Poetry, Performance, Music, and More! ...

Hosted by the one and only BIG MIKE!

Featuring the Beautiful, Amazing:

Elizabeth Amato - a writer, performance poet, filmmaker, director, producer, creator of the blog The Zesty Life (http://eamato.blogspot.com/) - She is a global nomad - you can find her in NYC, LA, London, and who knows where else!

Erica Miriam Fabri - a poet & performer & the author of "Dialect of a Skirt." She performs solo & as the hybrid music & poetry duo "The Robin & the Lady Poet." She teaches writing & performance workshops at various colleges & universities. She lives in the bright, shiny & beautiful land of New York City. Erica will appear with Robin Andre, a Brooklyn-born singer-songwriter, performer and recording artist. He was signed to RCA records for his debut album “Paper Bag” and has recorded, performed and toured in 32 different countries world-wide with multi-platinum artists such as The Dave Matthews Band, The Fugees, Mariah Carey, Lil Flip and Inaya Day. His solo work is a tight blend of rock, hip-hop and reggae sensibility. His newest hit-sensation single, “Betty,” is featured on itunes and he recently completed filming the colorful and funky music video by director, Jose Infante. Robin Andre, a natural entertainer, has also starred in off-Broadway musical theater productions, and worked as a commercial actor and professional dancer. He writes, performs and tours solo as well as in the duo “The Robin and the Lady Poet” and also can be seen performing live every week in his hometown with the iconic house band at the legendary “Village Underground” in Greenwich Village, NYC.

FAUX MAUX (Mo Kelly) - The consummate performance artist/actress/ playwright/writer - she has brought her awesomeness all over the world! Creates plays, performances, one-woman shows, and creative havoc of all kinds!!!! DDAY Productions, co-creator and producer!

Francesca Sphynx - a New York City Sateliites' based Poet. She writes from the discomfort of her current suburban home. She lives with her two cats, I mean, parents. She is recently returned from an explosive trip to NE Mississippi, and yes, she saw that gorgeous river!

PUMA PERL – Poet/Writer/Performance Artist/Producer/Curator and co-creator of DDAY Productions and this event - author of the recently released book "knuckle tattoos," the award winning chapbook "Belinda and Her Friends," widely published in journals and anthologies, internationally!

BIG MIKE - author of 2 books, 81 Pounds and Sibling Rivalry and appears in the anthology One Millimeter, all published by Pretty Pollution Press. Big Mike is known for his performance art and was awarded Best Neptune in the 2004 Mermaid Parade in Coney Island. Final third of DDAY Productions!

For more info about the Yippie: http://www.yippiemuseum.org/

Don't Miss OUr Encore Performance of Dr. Zhivago, Lara, and the Dead Poets!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NY9O3GE7To

Karma's a Bitch and So Are You

2011-01-14T13:48:00.000-08:00

I changed the title. It seemed trite. The title is Chloe's Ass, but Chloe is not a bitch, she's a rock goddess with an awesome ass.

Life would be simpler with an operational golden rule, but it's not the way lemon sherbert is measured out. Here's the poem.

CHLOE’S ASS
( with a big thanks to Courtney Love)

Chloe flips her blue plaid schoolgirl skirt into the air
Big Mike snaps at her perfect round ass,
Mary’s full gorgeous breasts, Rosabella’s shilouette,
and me
and me
and me,

and me, I am forever orange. Russian legs planted
on Aida’s shag rug as coca leggy Latina sisters
carve pork roast, race like happy colts
to la cucina for cerveza, guava paste, cigarettes

I was cute before I left home, now,
cheek to cheek with rock goddesses
my skin folds, Chloe calls me Mommy,
I zip camera case into motorcycle leather,
bus ride through Chinatown, pearls
roll under our feet, slip through our fingers,
discolored by regret and lemon juices,

I still walk fast and think faster,
my eyes tell stories you can’t understand,
Karma calls your name at midnight,
pray to your Gods, not mine,
shoot contrition into collapsed veins
recite poems to a lonely doorman,
betrayal laced with cum shots and pussy
opens like a broken umbrella, spokes
chipped and snarling, and me, and me,

I am forever orange, telling stories
you won’t understand, Karma’s
waiting under violet streetlights,
go on, take everything…
take everything…
take everything…

© puma perl, 1/14/11

Puma Perl & Big Mike: Scissors, Cutting & Whoring @ Sex Worker Literati

2011-01-12T12:25:00.000-08:00

I have posted this video before and have also discussed the evolution of the idea - I read a funny piece (RevJen's anti-slam, 3/10), or an erotic piece (Slipper Room, 4/10) or a serious piece (Red Umbrella Diaries 9/10, Sex Workers Literati, 11/10), or work it into a performance piece (RevJen again, 12/10) or a list of absurd resolutions (New Year's Day at the Bowery, 1/11) while Big Mike silently approaches the stage and begins to cut my clothes off. In the serious pieces, he was threatening, cut a piece of my hair off, wrote obscenities on my body, took photographs. New Year's Day, he suddenly cut me off by slapping his hands over my mouth and (naked) pussy and carrying/dragging me offstage. I created the concept and the text(s) and Big Mike's improv makes it a true collaboration between us.

And we have been robbed. Today's New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/12/theater/12radar.html?_r=1
Going under the radar and into the unknown????? This is a transcript of text messages between me and Big Mike. References to the Nude Artists Model piece is a reference to Faux Maux, who created that piece and saw another duo perform it, almost verbatim, while auditioning for another festival. (Frigid Festival, I believe.)

Big Mike: NEW YORK TIMES ART SEC PG C3, Under Radar Fest ANIGONE Duet STOLE OUR Act! SHE removes clothes, HE writes on her! check!

Puma: FUCK!

Big Mike: Intellectual Property Copyright Infringe-ment! Suddenly ANYTHING PUMA and BIG MIKE creates is in Public Domain?

Puma: I am soooooo pissed! What's next, under the Dr. Zhivago? or how about nude artist model meets zombie biker chick on a cold rainy nite! (these are references to pieces created by Faux Maux, me and Big Mike)

Big Mike: Good idea! Let's get 'em!

Puma: sid & nancy kick sonny & cher's ass during march madness

Big Mike: "Antigone taking Off layers of Clothes and Writing Messages On Her Body, Striking a Defiant Punk-Figure of Naked Aggression!" (quote from article - PS THAT IS OUR PIECE!)

Puma: pygmalion photographs venus & writes song lyrics on zombie joan jett

Big Mike: We are the true avant-garde!

(The still photograph was taken at the Bowery Poetry Club, 1/1/11)

Puma Perl and Big Mike: Dr. Zhivago, Lara, and the Dead Poets

2011-01-11T06:06:00.000-08:00

Dr. Zhivago, Lara, and the Dead Poets is a sort of "signature piece" for me and Big Mike. It's a tight five, doesn't require any special props except for a simple costume, and is our most popular video. I wrote it after watching several versions of Dr. Zhivago with Big Mike. Coincidentally, the English remake, starring Keira Knight was on last night.

I had wanted to do a new piece based on the murdered Portuguese gay activist/journalist, and his boyfriend, who cut off his balls with a corkscrew in a midtown hotel. I didn't know about the corkscrew, or that the young would-be model boyfriend is now claiming that his act was an effort to "cure" the older man of his homosexuality. The story gets better and better. Big Mike feels that the Yippie Cafe stage is too small for the piece, which involves a lot of movement, and that we should save it for RevJen's antislam at the Bowery and we haven't done Dr. Z in a long time. I'd been promising that we'd reprise it when the video reached 750 views, and it's only at 730, might be at 750 by 1/17, I guess.

The Dr. Z piece seemed so daring the first time we did it, which was at Viviana Grell's yearly midtown show at some comedy club. She remarked afterward, "That's what you get from people with no boundaries," which was funny at the time. I don't even know if Big Mike pulled my bra down in order to write a poem on my upper body. This was before we took the "scissors series" to the ultimate level, or maybe we haven't reached the ultimate level yet.

See Dr. Zhivago Monday, 1/17/11, Yippie Museum Cafe, 9 Bleecker bet Bowery & Elizabeth, 6:30-8:30, free with a suggested donation of whatever you can afford to support the space.
This month's show is called We Have A Dream and features Elizabeth Amato, Francesca Sphinx, Erica Miriam Fabri and Robin Andre (The Lady Poet and the Robin) and Faux Maux.

Coney Island is for Lovers

2011-01-10T15:01:00.000-08:00

Lola Star (http://lolastaar.wordpress.com/2011/01/08/calling-all-coney-island-lovebirds/) invites everyone to submit a story about love in Coney Island. A gift certificate will reward the most romantic story, and all who submit are entitled to receive a free tote bag.

I do not for a moment think this is the most romantic story, but it is sort of sweet. I'm not with the guy any more, and I could tell Coney Island stories about almost every significant relationship of my life, but this entry reflects a story I've always wanted to write.

We met at the Siren Festival. I thought he was laid-back, turned out he was just hung-over. David Johansen hugged Sylvain Sylvain, and I wondered aloud if we were the only ones in the crowd who remembered Max’s and Johnny Thunders. I used to go out with Cookie Mueller he replied, which I thought at the time was amazing because I had a huge girl crush on Cookie back then. Turned out he talked about her all the time.
You can’t put your arms around a memory, David sang, as we exchanged contact information. We’ve gotta stay connected, he said. Not too many of us left. He offered me a ride back to the city on his Harley, but I declined, as I was wearing shorts and flip-flops. The next week, he came down from his place upstate and we rode to Cape Cod. The following winter, I quit my job and we put around 10,000 miles on his truck and bike, trailing/riding it around the country. We continued our road trips, but we always went back to Coney Island. Even though we’re not together any more, he calls as soon as the weather turns mild and says We gotta take a cruise out to the boardwalk. I always agree, but we haven’t done it yet.

Puma Perl and Mad Anthony at Lix Kix 2nd Anniversary Celebration, 2nd ...

2011-01-09T10:09:00.000-08:00

Remembering a fun time in Cleveland. Mad Anthony is an awesome punk/speed metal type band and they had never played behind a poet before. Since they came up to perform at the reading, it seemed like a no-brainer to me. We had never met before and this was totally unrehearsed. They are SO cute.

I don't have the energy to post anything new because I am weirdly sick. The worst of it happened while watching Black Swan last night. I left dizzy, with a pounding headache, one of the few, apparently, who did not really care for the movie. I got sick of Natalie Portman's face and was let down by what was supposed to be a "hot" lesbian scene. They didn't even show anyone's tits, not even in the constant dressing room scenes, let alone the sex scenes. I expected more from the director, Darren Aronofsky. I loved The Wrestler and Requeim for a Dream, both of which were brutal when they needed to be.

I saw The Wrestler on Christmas Day, 2008, saw Crazy Heart Christmas Day, 2009, which I dubbed The Wrestler: Country Music version. In its own way, Black Swan is The Wrestler, ballet version. Not about comebacks, but there are other resemblances which will not be noted, as I do not want to be a spoiler.

naked without clothes

2011-01-06T05:59:00.000-08:00

naked without clothes

catch me on the wall

naked in my clothes

I can’t stop the snow

or you

we lie on cracked boards

touch to stay alive

I wait for the moon
or maybe it’s the sun

I can’t stop the morning

or you

© puma perl, 1/6/11

The Star Whackers

2011-01-05T07:32:00.000-08:00

Is anyone as fascinated by Randy Quaid and his wife Evi as I am? I was right in the middle of reading the long Vanity Fair interview when I was ushered into the dentist's office to have an extraction, which I did not have, because I had a melt-down instead. So I never finished the article and probably have to find another dentist because I think they're getting sick of my histrionics and they are also way too expensive.

Even though I am broke, I will buy that copy of Vanity Fair if it's still on the stands, if only to have permanent ownership of glossy photographs of the 47 year old Evi posing in garter belt and hat. I thought I was the only one in that age group that did that, although, admittedly, I never modeled for Helmut Newton and I don't wear hats. Well, not often.

Randy and Evi are either sharing the delusion of being persued by the "Star Whackers" - who are responsible for the untimely demise of Heath Ledger, David Carradine and many others - or she is orchestrating the entire event. Poor Randy seems to be the follower in this dance. Drug use definitely plays a part, but is there the possibility of folie a deux - a rarely diagnosed mental disorder in which two people, usually but not always a couple, share a delusion, generally based on paranoia? Folie imposee describes a situation in which one partner imposes the delusion upon the other.

I am trying to figure out a performance piece based on my new favorite couple but have not gotten past the title. I have been fascinated by the syndrome since I heard of it and wrote this poem back in 2007.

FOLIE A DEUX

Folie á Deux:
a madness
shared by two.
Beliefs unwired
transmitted untamed
binding, relentless
minds united
in folly
insane and glorious

Folie á Deux:
a dance for two
partners swivel
spin and pivot
reverse slide
side to side
syncopations
combinations

Folie Imposée :
illusions induced
partner follows
turn patterns
progressions
tempo of
leader’s strong eyes
knowing hands
drop and catch
shoulder check
hesitations
isolations
visionaries
dance as one
partner tumbles
falls to floor
leader
dances on and on

Folie Simultanée :
partners
sway as waves
tenderly
rock delusion
into sweet madness
red satin hips swing
stilettos spin
feet flare hair whips
spirits converse
with God
imagine
dancing souls

some call it love

© puma perl, 3/07

Bowery New Years Day

2011-01-04T07:21:00.000-08:00

No onstage pics yet for several reasons - Big Mike could not take any because he was performing with me and had his hands full cutting off my clothes and improvising - side note, I wonder - since he carried me offstage with one hand over my mouth and the other one up my pussy, was it an x-rated performance??? Anyway, not included in the one album I've seen. We also co-hosted, but since the creator of that album hates me, she managed to post pics of Big Mike CO-hosting by himself.

Bowery Poetry Club, Dark Matters, 2-12 (ran over), 150 scheduled poets, and 30 open mic slots. You get a serious 3 minutes - a siren will blare and the mic will shut down seconds later - so you have to hit the audience hard with something that will grab them and that they may even remember. There are also a lot of drunken attendees, the place is packed, the bar is jumping, so if you don't grab their attention, you may be drowned out by noise and activity. Last year, I grabbed them with my performance poem The Perfect Man, which is in the archives. I developed the idea for this year's piece at the 2010 show. Since The Perfect Man was under 3 minutes, I had brought along a very short list of ridiculous surreal resolutions, in case I wanted to fill in the time. I didn't use it due to the tremendously enthusiastic response to the piece - In fact, Gary Glazner came up shortly afterwards and referred to me as THE PERFECT POET of the day.

So I had this brainstorm - write a list of resolutions that starts out in a mundane fashion - i.e become a better poet, etc - and quickly launch into absurdity while Big Mike creeps up to the stage and starts to cut off my clothes. At the time, I imagined that I would wear pants and he would cut off my top and maybe my bra. We started using the concept in a variety of ways - played for laughs, and as a deadly serious dramatic device - Mike threatening me with the scissor, cutting off a piece of my hair, writing on my body, me winding up naked - part of the freshness of the piece is that I never know exactly what he's going to do.

The prose was perfect because it didn't matter where I left off - if I had too much time I could improvise, if it stopped midway, it was unimportant because it's just a list. I hope they don't censor the video in the archives. If I ever get pictures, I'll post them, including a couple from that day. The first photo posted is backstage with Amy Uzi, who performed "Princess" with Big Mike in his slot, and the thired is with Faux Maux, who performed an excerpt from her longer piece, "Nude Artists' Model."

First Poem of 2011

2011-01-03T05:30:00.000-08:00

This was written 1/1/11. I thought I might be starting a new 30/30 - just because - but I seem to have become distracted. Yesterday was the weird death day and this morning I have to have the oral surgery I've been putting off.

New Year's Eve day, Big Mike and I saw the one of the saddest movies I have ever experiences - Blue Valentine. The fact that it was an excellent movie with amazing acting and a smart script made it even more depressing. It inspired my poem, which, hopefully, is not an indicator of the year to come.

BLUE YEAR

You chased trains
Took beatings
She clung
You loved You loved You loved
Who you are
Always forever
Anger behind her eyes
like raisin oatmeal and ice water
She has moved beyond indifference
Cries when you touch her
in the blue room
You beg her to stay
She runs into the void
of not you
Not You Not You
Was it the song you didn’t sing
The cigarettes you smoked
She rides buses
You chase trains
You love You love You love

© puma perl, 1/1/11

The weirdest day

2011-01-02T10:07:00.000-08:00

I was going to post my first poem of the new year and/or a review of Dark Matters, Bowery Poetry New Year's Day Marathon, including the performance piece I did with Big Mike, Scissors and Resolutions.

Then I remembered why I feel weird on January 2nd every year, and every year it's the same - I don't know why I feel weird and then it hits me.

Jonathon Grell was born 1/2/52 and died on 2/21/95. He was the father of my son, Louis, and shot himself two days before my Louis' 21st birthday. We had not been together for years, and had not been in touch very often that particular year. I was angry at him because he and our son were estranged, and I felt that it was his fault. Despite the anger, I wanted to talk to him about it, but kept delaying the phone call; obviously, it was never made. The phone call that I did receive came at 4AM and was from Louis: "Jon passed. He shot himself in his car."

January 2nd is also the anniversary of the day that my daughter's father, Edwin Albert Gomez, died of an accidental overdose of heroin. I'm not sure whether it was the heroin that killed him, or the fact that he fell out in the bathroom and cracked his head open on the bathtub. So much for the myth of a peaceful OD. We were not together either, but were in touch. He was born on 5/15/55 and died 1/2/86, at the age of 31. Our daughter, Juliet, was 6. This time the phone call came from Carmen, Eddie's sister; I believe it was also sometime in the middle of the night.

My book, knuckle tattoos, is dedicated to the memory of both of these men, who, in their own ways, brought love and meaning to my life, and gave me the greatest gifts, my son and my daughter.

This pantoum was also written in their memory:

processions through haunted streets: a pantoum

it was always a midnight phone call
Carmen’s voice choked with tears
Eddie’s head hitting the bathroom tiles
somewhere outside a red door slammed

Carmen’s voice choked with tears
i heard her through the turquoise telephone
somewhere outside a red door slammed
my body’s impression faded from the battered couch

i heard her through the turquoise telephone
i’d been dreaming of graveside dances
my body’s impression faded from the battered couch
Jon held a gun in his tired shaking hand

i’d been dreaming of graveside dances
one hundred black umbrellas swaying in the rain
Jon held a gun in his tired shaking hand
Eddie wore a suit in a box without his shoes

one hundred black umbrellas swaying in the rain
a woman with long braids, voice lifted to the sky
Eddie wore a suit in a box without his shoes
Jon slept beneath the roses waiting for the flames

a woman with long braids, voice lifted to the sky
a procession winding slowly through the haunted streets
Jon slept beneath the roses waiting for the flames
it was always a midnight phone call

© puma perl, 11/17/08

Last Poem of 2010

2011-01-01T05:26:00.000-08:00

As promised, to you, my invisible audience, the last poem of 2010, a dark New Year's Eve. Today I will be performing a new piece, "Scissors and Resolutions" at the Bowery Poetry Club, will post tomorrow.

WAITING FOR THE NEW YEAR

Obediently,
I wait for permission to surrender.

My compulsions clutter the air with words and
eyes, nightmares, knives; another year rolls
past my wandering feet. I promise you, I
promise that I won’t leave this time, but I lie,
I lie, I lie down on mirrors and memory,
Chance lost like fillies on a running track,
and I remember, I remember my hands,
no longer my hands, I remember my legs
climbing mountains, I remember blood
stained arms and empty sockets, today
is the end and I’ve grown tired of my
skin, and of sleeping with Renoir on the brown
couch, no dogs barking, no footsteps, invisible
before the camera; I pledge my submission
to the ground, you may keep my burnt skies
and scorched questions, my lips are burning
as we move closer to resolution, I promise
you and again I lie, I lie on shards of glass
and broken book jackets, and I remember
the way you touched me in parked cars,
and I remember your hands were mine,
and I remember your eyes falling
like apples, and I wait for permission
to surrender, obediently, I wait.

© puma perl, 12/31/10

More New Year's Poems

2010-12-31T03:32:00.000-08:00

This poem is an excerpt from my chapbook, Belinda and Her Friends. The book is a series of linked poems about characters from the Lower East Side and life in the late 70's-early 80's. Belinda is the central character.

We met when we lived across the street from one another on East 10th. Her building was an abandoned city-owned structure with a self-appointed Polish super, Walter, who kept the boiler running (usually) and figured out ways to steal gas and electricity. The legendary musician, C-Sharp lived in the building also with his wife, China. I lived on the sixth floor of a walk-up directly across the way; I had previously lived on the 5th floor of the ajoining building, but a musician named Tommy nodded out after he came from the methadone program and burned the front part of the building out. People kept living in the rear, but when I heard about the vacant apartment I decided to move, and did so by throwing all of my belongings over the roof. What we couldn't carry up the stairs and over the roof just stayed there.

Belinda and Her Friends won the Erbacce Press Poetry Prize for best chapbook of 2008. Writing it, pieces of dialogue heard 30 years ago came back to me and are included, verbatim. This was a lower east side New Year's Eve day. One of the pictures is the last place Belinda had of her own. But that's another story.

ON NEW YEAR’S EVE DAY

On New Years Eve day
Cousin Willie bought a big bottle of rum,
said he'd sell shots in the house
to all the people who came by,
make a buck so they'd have a little
something something
start the new years right

On New Year’s Eve day
Belinda found a red dress
in the back of her closet
that almost matched her red
suede boots that sort of matched
a red vinyl bag someone gave her
she found a bright red lipstick,
stopped by to get Judy who wasn't there
Cousin Willie was alone
drinking rum from a big bottle
they killed half of it and she left

On New Years Eve day
it was fifty two degrees,
the programs were closed
abuelas in skirts and thick socks
pushed small children along
tugging carts full
of laundry and pork roasts
the guys on park benches
started drinking at noon
some of them looked
like they were going out dancing
they tilted the bottles
for the brothers upstate
called the girls Betty Boop,
went home to eat

On New Years Eve day
Cousin Willie finished the rum
passed out on the bed
Judy came home pissed off,
drank the next day's methadone
both hers and cousin Willie’s,
Belinda staggered around
in her bright red glory
imagining herself draped across
a grand piano like in some movie
she'd have stockings without rips
all her reds would match
imma hook it up this year she thought
this is gonna be my year

Another New Year

2010-12-30T06:28:00.000-08:00

Everyone on the lower east side used to think that Lauren and I were sisters. It was less of a physical resemblance than a similarity in attitude. Before we met, people were constantly coming up to me thinking I was her and vice versa - the first time we encountered one another we were dressed identically in Kristina Gorby velvet - mine was blue, hers was red. We both had wild black hair and were of similar height and wore wire rimmed glasses. She went to California for a while and I hitchhiked around the east coast. One day, clad in my hitching gear - striped overalls and a 10 inch knife in a leather sheath on my hip - someone showed me a photo of her taken in Berkeley in which she wore - striped overalls and a knife on her hip. Please forgive the mention of the striped overalls, I have no idea what we were thinking.

Lauren came back to NYC, winding up on the lower east side, and we wandered the streets in our finery - spaghetti strap slip nightgowns we bought in Mays Department Store on 14th street, back when Union Square was about placydels and tuinals; anthere was also a very active stroll on 3rd Avenue. The model on the cover of my book, knuckle tattoos, wears a similar nightgown, one of mine, bought more recently; I wish they were as cheap and easy to find as they were back then.

This poem is about our travels through the neighborhood on a New Year's Eve sometime in the late 70's. It's not the best poem I ever wrote, but every word is true.

ANOTHER NEW YEAR
It was another New Year.
Oh no, not this one and not
the year before -
no, not any of those.

I lived in a different body,
for I am blessed like an alley cat,
sides forever swollen with newness

Ice covered tenement steps,
skirts flared beneath
tiny fake leather jackets
After midnight we wandered,
welcome and uninvited

We were young
Doors swung open
for a smile

At two AM
we found a music hall
dark, half empty
Tina Turner sang Proud Mary
There were no Ikettes

We drank dark rum
smoke in our hair
danced our way
into bars and clubs
through happy streets

It was a new year
before the darkness

Everything was free.

© puma perl, 12/30/08

Resolutions?

2010-12-29T08:02:00.000-08:00

Last New Year's Day, I made a pact with Big Mike to perform my piece, New Year Resolutions, during my 3 minute slot at the Bowery Poetry Club Poetry Marathon, 1/1/11. Invitations to the marathon were arrogantly assumed, and staying alive another year was implicit to the agreement. Suicide, accidental death, or extreme hopelessness were all out of the question, lest the pact be broken. Underlying depression, anger, and cynicism, naturally, continued.

We are still kicking, and are invited to perform individually and to co-host the 10 o'clock hour. Big Mike has hosted at many of the marathons. This is my first time and I'm not even sure what the point of throwing me in was, since Big Mike does a great job by himself, but the invitation was issued and he was gracious about sharing the spotlight with me.

I don't want to spoil the piece, so suffice to say it involves surrealism, absurdity and scissors. Hopefully, photographs and a video will be posted at a later date.

And now, a New Year's Eve poem - I will post one daily till 2011.

New Year’s Eve Pantoum
(in memory of Don Cherry)
He always tapped a rhythm on the door
Everything he did was made of music
Folks often ran into him at midnight
He liked to play his pocket trumpet on the street

Everything he did was made of music
He stood in front of Charlie Parker’s house till dawn
He liked to play his pocket trumpet on the street
It was a New Year’s Eve that she first stopped to listen

He stood in front of Charlie Parker’s house till dawn
The weatherman had said that it might snow
It was a New Years Eve that she first stopped to listen
She wore suede boots as if she didn’t care

The weatherman had said that it might snow
He pulled his hat down against the wind
She wore suede boots as if she didn’t care
He played a song he said he wrote for her

He pulled his hat down against the wind
She wrapped her scarf around his neck
He played a song he said he wrote for her
She listened for a while, then she danced

She wrapped her scarf around his neck
He said he’d be back home in just a bit
She listened for a while then she danced
He always tapped a rhythm on the door

© puma perl, 12/31/08

After the Blizzard

2010-12-28T05:21:00.000-08:00

I used to get up early and take pictures of the sunrise on a regular basis. This morning, at 6:45, I stumbled to the window and shot these. I wrote this poem last October at the same time of morning.

Thursday, 6:29:45

Sunrise.
One jogger shuffles by
his legs grow stronger every morning
He will do something useful today,
while my hours explode with words

I stare down at the water, emptiness
summoned insomnia, they hid pebbles
in my bed, sleep has abandoned me again

So I write a thousand poems
So I snap a hundred pictures

Lean further out the window each morning,
one tit falls out of my tiger print nightgown,
as I point and shoot, point and shoot
at Long Island City, at Jimmy’s house,
at the Williamsburg Bridge, at the East River

Every second is new light;
I am the delegated witness
to days that begin despite themselves

Last night I met a guy I probably knew,
reminisced about dope fiends, thieves and poets,
shooting galleries, toy shotguns, unmarked cabs,
he kissed me good-bye, said if you ever need me
Puma, I’m there,I don’t remember what that means
but I remember the mornings on Third Street
when the birds carried slingshots and the sun
never rose on a waking hour, nobody slept,
we just nodded out on a good day, afraid
to go to sleep because we knew we’d wake up sick

7:28:32
I move the table back against the wall.
A light flicks off across the way, the man
who sees my tit each morning goes to work;
he will also do something useful as I load
another hundred photos into the computer,
searching for the one that captured the smell
of mustard seeds and hope, heat, sky, today
but perfection eludes me once again

So I write more poems
So I’ll take more pictures
Point and shoot, point and shoot
at rivers, sunrise, bridges, buildings
until I sweep the pebbles from the bed
and leave the witnessing to gods
and other babbling fools

© puma perl, 10/22/09

OF GEEKS AND BLIZZARDS

2010-12-27T07:51:00.001-08:00

Huns stride across the screen,
trampling dreams and hobbits.
I have no interest in the symbolism
of geeks and Lords; in the cosmic
struggle, geeks rule corner boys,
blood and flesh lost in darkness.

The blizzard rages. I wonder if I left
my car lights on. I become obsessed
with my alternator. As the trilogy
continues, I am frozen by fear
of dead black Maximas, desperately
I distract myself with fantasies
of my favorite mental disorder,
(folie a deux, a madness built for two),
though clearly he and I have created
boundaries delineating individual
bouts with insanity rather than shared
delusions. I attempt to settle the fine points
of our relationship during a commercial
break, but fall asleep on his shoulder,
as he drinks soda and discourses
on sixth century history with his right
brain, I am dreaming in blinding
white light, oblivious to classical
antiquity and Nubian Kingdoms –
rolling credits wake me, brainstorms
rush through my veins, the clarity
of hallucinations comfort me,
and in the midst of the worst
December blizzard in memory
all is suddenly,
brilliantly,
kaleidoscopically,
clear.

© puma perl, 12/27/10

Puma Perl performs "Nancy's Legs"

2010-12-26T07:07:00.000-08:00

The Meaning of True Grit

2010-12-25T14:08:00.000-08:00

Jew Christmas - coffee, bagels, lox, antibiotics, and True Grit. The remake is excellent, and adheres more closely, I am told, to the book. Hailee Steinfeld, who played the young girl was amazing, and, although it's hard to beat John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn, Jeff Bridges did well, and I'm not just saying that because I have a soft spot for him, and also, a great deal of lust.

But this is not a movie review. I don't do those. I am pondering on the meaning of grit. Lately, I am told repeatedly how "brave" and "courageous" my writing and performances are. After the December performance at the Bowery Sex Worker Literati series, a young lady gushed about my "awesomeness and courage" and asked several times, "Can I touch you?" (She didn't say where, but I was vaguely agreeably anyway.) Women more gorgeous than I ever was or will be tell me they want to be like me, or even BE me. Why???????

Courage? Like in True Grit? Did I face down outlaw gangs, get bitten by snakes, carry 14 year old snakebitten girls through snowy mountains, shoot my horse when it fell from exhaustion and broke its leg?

Cynically, I sometimes hear "brave" as a euphemism for "fat" and "old," taking into account, of course, that size 6 is considered Medium, and size 10 Large, and that women are expected to retreat into invisibility when the gray hair they hide is no longer premature.

Should I walk through the Canyon of Heroes naked?

What is a hero? Not an overpaid athlete, or an insurance agent on his way to work. Blessed by talent, cursed by fate, but heroes for being who and where they are and were? No more than I am "brave" for having lived a fucked up life and for using in my work without anonymity, or for inhabiting the body I possess, and using IT without anonymity, as I see fit.

Nudity and performance - I've appeared onstage naked and therefore have no fear of appearing onstage fully dressed. Ever. Conquering one fear has worked on others. I have a commitment to each performance - to take risks, I must be fully committed and therefore fully in those moments, no matter what. I was watching some videos at someone's place last night, including a Best of John Belushi, and I realized that's what I had admired most about him - his total commitment while performing, as well as the sweetness that lied somewhere in his face. His life may have been fucked, but watching him perform, you would never know that, and you could tell that he probably got up black and blue from some of those falls (like in the Joe Cocker piece) but while he was in those moments he probably never felt a thing.

Does that make him courageous? No more than it makes me courageous. True grit is in the ability and motiviation to stick it out, no matter what. Probably, Belushi did NOT have that grit,although he may have developed it down the line. I can name few that do have it. Certainly not myself.

Puma Perl and Big Mike: Dr. Zhivago, Lara, and the Dead Poets

2010-12-25T05:09:00.000-08:00

Resolution

2010-12-24T08:19:00.001-08:00

The Bowery Poetry Club has been conducting it's underground alternative to the St. Mark's Poetry Project New Year's Day Marathon for 16 years - this will be the 17th http://www.bowerypoetry.com/#Event/97572 This years theme is Dark Matters.

Two years ago, I attended and couldn't get on the open mic. Last year, I was, for the first time, asked to perform - we each get three minutes, no negotiations for extra time. Sirens seriously go off, so you have to make your three minutes count. I did a piece called The Perfect Man, which was later included in the current Uphook Press anthology, Hellstrung and Crooked. The video of that hour can be seen here: http://www.rfg3travel.com/bowerypoetryclub/boweryondemandny2010h2.html

The Perfect Man
I have found the perfect man.

He lives 3,000 miles away.
He’s a bipolar sex addict who swears speed relieves his ADD.
His girlfriend wears a strap-on, he has two failing businesses, a custody battle, and he writes a hell of a lot better than me.

He’s the perfect man.

Last time he visited, he drove like an old man, made rights on reds, got lost every time I left him alone.

I’d rescue him, lead him to his hotel; he’d treat me like a hooker that he doesn’t have to pay.

Perfect.

Degradation, dissolution, dissipation, all wrapped up into one large
6’5, out of shape package; I suspect a touch of Asperger’s, too.

He is the perfect man.

He only gets my sense of humor when we’re online, at least I think he does, because he writes lol and I answer with hahaha, I refuse to write lol, or to call him by any of his four first names.

My perfect man is a bigger slut than I am.

We toss fuck stories at each other like shuttlecocks.
The dwarf on the greyhound bus, a jazz trio, a random Allman Brother – ok those are mine – his usually involve first cousins, teachers, sisters and their aunts –his four drag queens trump my three Jacks.

He likes to have phone sex but he never says anything interesting.
Once, I forgot to move my car and got a parking ticket because it took so long to cum.
hey, he said, don’t blame me.

He’s my perfect man.

We fight about nothing but syntax and lyrics.
We only watch porn and we bring our own toys.
We hate each other more than we hate ourselves and less than we hate everybody else.

He’s perfect.

He knows the difference between lay and lie, but I beat him at spelling. I’m always glad to see him and never miss him when he’s gone. Once we had a feeling; it only lasted a minute and I got fourteen poems out of it.

He’s the perfect man for me.
He’s perfect.

This year, I was asked to perform in the 9-10 slot, and to co-host, with Big Mike, the 10-11 hour. So that's a lot of change in a short period of time.

I get frustrated with myself over the time I have wasted, but try to channel it into making every performance count.

The New Year's Day event will stream live from the Bowery, consult homepage for more info http://www.bowerypoetry.com/#Home

Embrace This! a comment on Fear and Fearlessness

2010-12-23T06:06:00.001-08:00

We were all troopers Wednesday night. I had visited my dentist earlier that day only to be informed that the pain in my face was caused by a "massive, huge infection" that required surgery, and had started on an aggressive antiobiotic, with the usual unpleasant side effects; Big Mike was battling bronchitis, tonsilitis and had just audtioned for the Frigid Festival with Faux Maux, who had endured being witness to a direct rip-off of her piece, Nude Artist Model; not only had it been plagarized by a competing duo, but it was performed in derisive and demeaning. Despite this assault, Maux way had bravely soldiered on and performed her own piece, Adam and Eve, with Big Mike. Naturally, they were the only ones whose audition involved strategically placed snakes and fig leaves. They didn't make the cut, but at least the theives didn't either.

So we're a bit battered at RevJen's anti-slam, which started later than the usual 10:30; luckily, Big Mike got a number 3 pick so we premiered a piece that I had written, Embrace This! (Maux was performing solo later on.) I was a little trepidatious because we had run through it only once, and I had removed and then re-inserted the music - Hole's Violet. The piece is based on a conversation between myself and Big Mike shortly after my book launch party for knuckle tattoos last March. We were watching the dvd and I didn't mind my performance, although the sound was bad for the last half, but I became overly critical, to put it mildly, of my appearance in the cinema verite shots:

PUMA: Oh my God! Look at me in that video! I look one hundred years old! I’m like an old lady in punk rock clothes!
(SOB SOB SOB)

BIG MIKE: Well, not all of us can be Elle McPherson.

PUMA: What??? I’m literally ready to curl up and die and that’s your response? “Well, you’re no Elle McPherson?”

BIG MIKE: I didn’t say Well, you’re no Elle McPherson.I said Not all of us can BE Elle McPherson. Elle McPherson is Elle McPherson. You’re you. Look how happy you look in that shot. Can’t you focus on that?

This dialogue is pretty much verbatim. Big Mike did not go the obvious route, reassuring me that I'm still beautiful, etc etc - no, the fuck went right to the heart of it - ACCEPT IT, no, do more than accept it, EMBRACE IT!

The heart of the piece is my admission that I do NOT like getting older, I have limited acceptance, but I am doing it anyway because the only other option is to quit - We rant on about the meaninglessness and pointlessness of the piece, as he begins to cut my clothes off. He got a bit overzealous, ripping off my garter belt, thong, and destroying one of my stockings. I wound up nearly naked except for Harley boots by the time he flipped the music on, so what could I do except scream "go on take everything, take everything I want you to? while he danced around finishing up the job.

Some time ago I wrote this piece called "Fear and Fearlessness" which was published on Lara and Roxi's blog, Bad Girls, Worse Hair http://www.badgirlsworsehair.blogspot.com/

It feels relevant to post right here:

Fear and Fearlessness

I got an email from a "friend" – she is such a good friend that she has not come to one event of mine, including my book launch party, even though she lives in the city. But, suddenly, she identified herself as my caring, worried BFF, and wrote – in part –

I'm worried about you. What is going on with the nude pics??? I truly don't understand them, Puma. I feel (and it is not my opinion only, many others have mentioned it) that you are sabotaging yourself as a legitimate, important poet by putting yourself out there with Big Mike like you do. I cringe when I see some of those photos. You are a good poet, why do you feel you have to do that? I just don't get it.

Don't you love it when people invoke the "many others" plea – it's not just me, EVERYBODY is talking about you! Of course, when I confronted her on the many others thing, she backed down and admitted that it was "just a few." She also retreated from her statement about my "nude" pics – because there are none. I might also add that she has not seen one performance that I have done with Big Mike.

I played Cher for laughs, dragons drawn on my ass in line with the cellulite, thong apparently shifted to reveal my Brazilian waxed pussy – EASIER than dressing in layers to look old and frumpy!

Here's the thing – my body is just a body. If it provokes a discussion, if I break a boundary, if I make you "CRINGE" – good, at least I'm doing something. If I were mean, I would ask the lady poet who wrote to me what the fuck she had done lately but I already know the answer – NOTHING!

Puma Perl and Mad Anthony at Lix Kix 2nd Anniversary Celebration, 2nd ...

2010-12-22T15:16:00.000-08:00

RevJen's Anti-Slam tonight

2010-12-22T04:58:00.001-08:00

Assuming I survive this morning's dental appointment, I will be previewing a new piece tonight at RevJen's anti-slam at the Bowery, 10PM, also assuming I get a good pick. At the snti-slam, instead of signing up as you arrive, you write your name on a slip of paper and throw it in a jar; RevJen that pulls names out and you sign up. I've always gotten good picks and since I will be performing with Big Mike, my chances are doubled.
This piece is called Embrace It! and is about acceptance; it also involves, scissors, Courtney Love, Elle McPherson, and DaDa-esque nudity. We'll see how it goes.

Puma Perl & Big Mike: Scissors, Cutting & Whoring @ Sex Worker Literati

2010-12-21T18:16:00.000-08:00

Videos - Sex Worker Literati and More

2010-12-21T07:31:00.001-08:00

In the last year I have become more focused on performance art and have worked regularly with Big Mike, Faux Maux, and Amy Uzi, among other people. Big Mike is my most consistent performance partner and we also created a production company, DDAY Productions, and produce a monthly event at the Yippie Museum Cafe. It's always 4 female features, including myself and Faux Maux, and is hosted by Big Mike, and is a combination of poetry, performance, dance, and more, with NO censorship. It is free and the next event is Monday, 1/17/11, 6:30-8:30, 9 Bleecker Street.

This past Sunday, Big Mike, Amy Uzi, and I did a poetry/dance performance at the Sex Worker Literati Holiday Party at the Bowery Poetry Club, with Rick Eckerley on sax (actually, Rick broke his hand so he looked the part of the sax player while Harlem Nocturne and Rhapsody in Blue played). Lap dances and nudity included! I will post the video when it's available.

Big Mike and I were featured in the same venue, hosted by Zoe Hansen and David Henry Sterry, and we performed my piece Sittin on a Gold Mine, which David Henry Sterry entitled:
PUMA PERL & BIG MIKE: SCISSORS, CUTTING & WHORING
Click link to watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9xCf8eXAUM

I'm Back

2010-12-21T07:27:00.000-08:00

I have not posted here for ages and I have no idea how to attract attention to it, but I guess I will give it a shot.

knuckle tattoos - order now!!!!

2010-02-10T11:10:00.000-08:00

http://www.erbacce-press.com/#/pumaperl/4531745901

$12, free shipping internationally from erbacce press.

Or buy one from me at the book launch if you are in the area!

Party!

2010-02-04T05:28:00.000-08:00

Book launch party update!

Hosted by Jackie Sheeler! Performers include Jane Ormerod, George Wallace, Thomas Fucalero, Kat Georges, Cyndi Dawson and RK Scott (wordrockers dawson/scott), Big Mike and Faux Maux, musicians Tommy Abousleman, RK Scott, and Richard H. Lewis, and more!!

I will perform new material from "knuckle tattoos" with the help of these amazing musicians and performers.

Beautiful cover model Vera Hellen will be on hand to display her hand-crafted metal jewelry, as seen on the cover.

Another review!

2010-02-04T05:21:00.000-08:00

A new review from Grievous JOnes, reviewed by John Dorsey
http://gjreview.blogspot.com/2010/01/knuckle-tattoos-by-puma-perl.html

Saturday, January 30, 2010
KNUCKLE TATTOOS by Puma Perl

Words to live and die by …or at least paint across your knuckles in blood

That is what Puma Perl’s latest book sets in front of its readers, and the result is no small offering. Perl’s Knuckle Tattoos is more than just another grouping of autobiographical writing by another New York poet, more than a love letter to senseless emotional geography or some nameless junkie’s horror story, calling it any of those things would be selling the author and the book short.

What sets the book apart is its honesty, its confidence, and its willingness to admit that we all fuck up from time to time, granted some of us a little more than others. Knuckle Tattoos owns the author’s flaws rather beautifully, while at the same time making them in some way the reader’s own. It doesn’t matter that you may have never suffered from addiction, it doesn’t matter that you may never know what it’s like to deal with self-esteem issues, or look up at the sky and wish you could be someplace else, anywhere else, other than your own skin. It just doesn’t matter, because the book hits on so many things, that we can all say that we’ve been there on some level, we can relate. The book offers us welcome company in our darkest moments.

I would never claim to be a skilled reviewer, Hell maybe this isn’t much of a review, but I will say that with Knuckle Tattoos, Puma Perl really surprised me, snuck up on my sense of wonder and left it breathless in front of a broken mirror with nothing left to do, but reflect on my own scatted pieces of memory and while I’ve always enjoyed her poetry, for the first time I feel connected to it.

While owing a debt to the New York School of the 1960’s and 70’s, and to writers such as Joe Brainard and Jim Carroll in particular, Perl’s voice is without question her own and her book is one that I would highly recommend to anyone who is a fan of poetry that doesn’t suck, which is a rare thing in any era.

BUY IT HERE!

Knuckle Tattoos is available now from Erbacce Press for $12 pp.worldwideFor more information, visit /www.erbacce-press.com
reviewed by John Dorsey

knuckle tattoos available now!!!!!

2010-02-04T05:15:00.000-08:00

knuckle tattoos is available for pre-order now! $12, postage free from erbacce all over the world. If you are coming to the book launch, I can sign it there, will ship in mid-Februrary!

http://www.erbacce-press.com/#/pumaperl/4531745901

New Year's Day at the Bowery Poetry Club

2010-01-23T08:02:00.000-08:00

I'm one of the poets featured in the archives, you can stream on demand. It's an honor to be chosen from the 150 poets or so who participated.
http://ondemand.bowerypoetrylive.com/

More Reviews for "knuckle tattoos"

2010-01-23T04:57:00.000-08:00

Puma Perl writes poems chiseled in granite with fingernails. Her poems ring like Leonard Cohen songs, in line after line of taut language, describing dark emotion and the illusion of structure. She dredges deep and scratches hard to find the crumbs of dazzle in a life of eviction, addiction, pain, and loss. The Francis Bacon of poetry, Perl uses language to paint images that maintain a surface clarity, but reverberate far deeper into the dark side of the pscyhe, without ever every straying to cliche. The narrator never blinks at the world where innocence is not allowed, as she travels from Dali-esque illusion to deep desperation, and—finally—to the only true resolve: to somehow keep going. The fact that these poems exist is confirmation of what Bukowski called the goal of poetry: to show the beauty of the horror. Perl succeeds remarkably, with a collection that stands alone for its integrity, guts and revelations.

Kat Georges
Founder/Editor, Three Rooms Press

You wroteon January 8, 2010 at 12:09pm
Puma Perl is tough, funny, straight ahead and unforgettable. A survivor with a knockout punch and a heart of gold who claims she never wrote a love poem. But don't be fooled, Knuckle Tattoos is an epic love poem to the curb and back dressed in leopard print, sporting come fuck me pumps working the thin edge. Puma is jazz, punk and the ghost of Ava Gardner. A subway angel who talks to god, Puma Perl is a pearl of a girl and a poet who writes like her heart is on fire.

S.A. Griffin, editor The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry

Puma Perl's Knuckle Tattoos is brilliant, perhaps even magnificent, but absolutely stellar. Perl is both poet and anti-poetry whose craft is so strong you almost don't realize you are reading poetry. Funny, sad, angry, curious; Knuckle Tattoos takes you a 1000 places from a singular, unique voice. When I grow up I wanna write as well as Puma Perl.

Buy Knuckle Tattoos, winner of the 2009/2010 Erbacce Press Poetry Contest, the first chance you can. Check with Puma or Erbacce-press.com

or me...well not me. I am tired of telling you all to buy shit when you already know you should.

jck hnry
writer/with the patience of monuments (neoPoiesis Press, 2009)

You wroteon January 20, 2010 at 10:05am
After reading Puma Perl, my week begins on Sunday. I always knew that it did, but her saxophones, footsteps, carwrecks, and love-moans re-affirmed this for me. Every Doc-Martined moment in this book makes pain livable--you are on the street with her by needle, gunshot, orgasm, and epiphany. Puma's poetry is not afraid to punch you in the stomach, to tell you to stop crying about being punched in the stomach, or to tell you you have no guts in the first place. These poems are like shots of whiskey and regret, hope and tequila, addiction to the fervor of life and not the easy way out. Puma never took that easy way out--read about it. - Joe Milford, poet/host of Joe Milford Radio Show

Puma Perl wants blood.She also wants your sweat,your tears, your annexation into her world for a time.
So get comfy Puma's not going anywhere,she has alot to say if you'll listen.
She is asking you to be honest,be direct,and never forget that freedom of which she speaks.
She works in a temple of agony,and a hallway of love,ugly bodies on either side,lo' human all of them presented.

You should be so happy to be in this kind of pain,you should be grateful she wants you to choke up when you read her.
I did sob; the first poem she submitted to my journal Heavy Bear made me break down like a child.I was taken back to my own suffering,she creates an empathy in the reader so easily,it is frigthening.She closes the circuit between us as writer and purveyor!

Puma has a way of arranging the pretty mess, of making it graphic, yes; but with such tenderness at times.
Such a directness of language you are never going to mistake what she defines as life well worn.
It is a bold book,Knuckle Tattoos,one that will rock you to your core,or make you run wild in the streets.
Either way,I am sure that is precisely her intent.Puma is a survivor,and a well adjusted one at that,she belongs amongst the great templars of poets who tell it like it is to coin a tired phrase..but this is her skin, and she wears it proud, she donnes it well dirty
as the garment may be--it is in her astoundingly original voice.

Jane Crown (author of Her Delicate Shoe, and host of Jane Crown's poetry Radio)

Advance Reviews for "knuckle tattoos!"

2010-01-21T12:27:00.000-08:00

Puma Perl
Knuckle Tattoos
erbacce press

Puma Perl's new collection of poetry is a huge consolidation and deepening of the authentic voice she displayed in her first chapbook Belinda and her Friends, from the same publisher. The poems in this present selection are razor sharp and often very beautiful. The poems are about endings and indecisive identities, weak men and women, strong men and women, a nostalgia for the beautiful loser identity from another Jewish writer much less significant than Puma.

only the endings that i initiate surprise me
others give themselves away faster than i do
an intake of breath
a change in inﬂection
my name sounding different on their lips
fading, evaporating like the air
in those broken windows on second street

this morning angels danced
across a blazing sky
leaning to the left
i saw it was just the sun
masked in ebony smoke
no magic involved at all
and as the light took over
it all disappeared
(from end of the cataclysm)

These poems are easy to read and easy to identify with, and at the heart of many of them is nostalgia and parting. Poetry may be a struggle to catch the dispersal of fleeting meaning and an act of love that refuses to let nature and the past of the writer dissolve into indeterminacy, it strives to give them memorable identity and a profound and lasting meaning. It is a protest against the lack of presence, it wants to take a photograph of a hedgehog defiantly crossing Heidegger's Autobahn, implies Derrida, in one of his treatises on the zoology of writing, and thus make it real, thus celebrate non-arrival.

it will end.
i’ll drive north,
you’ll ride south,
Glock in your sidebag,
laptop on my seat,
cellphone charging,
Beggar’s Banquet
playing nonstop.

home,
and it’s over
Florida sun
New York moon
same sky
new day
no messages,
another
long drive
to nowhere.
(from Friday Morning)

There are poems about heroin and addiction, Puma being a former dope fiend, and these are among the best, as are the poems about relationships, and the difficulty of love and a stable existence with somebody

now, i hang out with men
who don’t like me much;
i don’t like them either.

it seems to be working out.
(from Skiing with Sonny Bono)

Puma is also one of the masters of nostalgia, capturing the past moment as well as a camera does, as effectively, as in this appropriately titled poem

in our photos
there’s always distance
between us,
and too many teeth
sometimes, i look
like i might ﬂy off
into the mountains
at the ﬁrst turn

he denies the empty
spaces, says i’m jealous,
which is ridiculous,
since i don’t even like
him that much,
and anyway
we were all young
and beautiful
back then,
all the girls
laid back on bikes,
unsmiling, lifted
their shirts, tits
and eyes
staring directly,
unblinkingly,
into the camera’s lens
(from unblinkingly into the lens)

This book beat 1,400 other books to win the erbacce contest. I really hope it sells enormously well, get your copy at http://www.erbacce-press.com/ but turn off the sound in your browser first, the website tries to play shitty music.

Book Launch Party!

2010-01-18T14:00:00.000-08:00

Knuckle Tattoos release party!!!
All are invited! Admission Free!
Sunday, March 7,2010, 6-7:30
Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery (bet Houston & Bleecker)
NYC

Poetry, Music, Performances!
Puma Perl will perform poetry from the new collection and sign books!
Hosted by Jackie Sheeler
Performances by: Kat Georges, George Wallace, Thomas Fucalero, Jane Ormerod, Big Mike and Faux Maux, word rockers dawson/scott, Tommy Abousleman, and additional surpriseguests!!!

Meet cover model Vera Hellen, who display her hand crafted jewelry, as seen on the book cover!

Doors open at 5:30 - come early and have a drink! or two!