Photograph Poem #2: NY MOON

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

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

More New Year's Poems

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

After the Blizzard

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