"BUNKER PEOPLE," PUMA PERL & JOE SZTABNIK Locked Down In Joe's Bunker, NYC June 13, 2020

Lower East Side poet Puma Puma performs two of her poems -- 'Grace & Madness' and 'What In The World (Never Forever)' -- with Joe Sztabnik of New York Junk, locked down in Joe's Bunker, New York City, June 13, 2020.
GRACE AND MADNESS
Do you believe in grace and madness?
I am awed by motorcycles, scared of trucks
I can’t shoot pool and I wish my face hadn’t changed
Maybe it was my father’s unexpected high-pitched laugh
or my mother’s borderline ways
I rocked myself to sleep with dolls and cookies
Last night it was Romeo Void and sex toys
Never say Never.
I’d be lying if I said it really didn’t matter
and I’m sorry I didn’t take better care of you
Fear thrills me
Awe fills me
The blind dream in stereophonic sound
and we're all under water
Waiting for grace
Living in madness
Sometimes I can’t believe that I breathe.
© puma perl, 10/5/09
WHAT IN THE WORLD (NEVER FOREVER)
What in the world can I do?
My shoes are still untied.
I trip into people’s lives
and out again,
intimacy as random
as a taxi cab.
I am a broken basket.
Don’t put your eggs in me.
Like Bowie’s girl,
I prefer to stay in my room,
and my eyes are gray
Sometimes.
It's always sometimes,
never forever.
My hands are not my hands.
They tell their own stories
in street Spanish,
sign language.
A knife in the park.
A fall on a Central Park rock.
An open artery.
The right one,
evenly tanned.
On the left,
a ring made from a fork.
It won’t come off.
I don’t remember
where I got it,
or how it wrapped
itself around me.
I don’t remember
names, places, birthdays
or my babies’ first words.
I remember this morning.
Keys on the coffee table,
English muffin,
butter melting,
hot cup in the car,
Lou Reed, Sweet Jane,
Chinese proverbs.
Lives saved like pennies,
collected and spent.
I made a pact to live
until I die by hands
other than my own.
So what in the world can I do?
© puma perl, 12/22/09