Pucci Poetry Releases:
A DREAM OF BUTTERFLIES 1994
THE QUIET SUN FLOWERS* 2005
INSTINCTUAL* 2006
HISTORIAN'S TALES* 2007
A DELICATE CAGE (* COMBINED) 2007
AUMTUMN POSTCARD DAY 2007
LIVING TERRAIN 2008
Sonnets from THE QUIET SUN FLOWERS
XIV (February 9th--3 of 3)
Each note I send to you, each letter, word,
Comma, colon, period, question mark,
Like standing by a marble-statued bird
Spouting rain into the shallow pool, dark
With pennies copper, dimes and nickels tin--
Fingers still plump with baby fat clutch
Coins from the parsimonious purse. Thin
Motherly lips smile and patiently watch
Gravely charged wants arc from awkward limbs,
Lifted in joy at the secretive splash
And, drowning with caution thrown to the wind,
Deposit themselves 'mongst those wishes past.
The children laugh with glee, so elated
At causing death, at desire wasted.
XXXIIII (July 28th-3 of 4)
Forcing the issue, your desparate play,
Striving for connection, reaching for touch,
This would be fine with a confident way,
But your fear is exposing far too much.
Some days it is pain, an exquisite need,
Some days it is something simply enjoyed,
Living, it is called, vicariously,
Some days you are purely light in the void.
And those outside will make their judgement calls,
Interpreting life by what they have known.
Look at them stumble, they don't know my falls,
My moments of triumph, bleeding alone.
We do our best with what we understand;
My method is that of the empty hand.
XLVIV (October 21st)
The pointilist paints in her rich colors,
A delicate spray of corrupt fashion.
She dances among the verbal flowers,
Fate couched in a molten, silent passion.
The artist writes her monochrome tales,
Her brilliant mind navigating the maze
Of pouncing women and fevered males,
No motive is safe in what she portrays.
A student of the human condition
And a master of red scars and black lines,
She marches on the edge of division,
Eyes sharply focused and feeding the mind.
Be careful, the lust you think you are hiding?
She will brew into ink, sharp and blinding.
LXIV (November 6th-6 of 6)
Quiet like the fragrant evening becomes,
Dancing with reminders of yesterday,
Shortly before the dawn unfolds the sun,
The immortal spirits come out to play.
Some offer guidance and infuse our dreams,
And some inhabit, seeking the ancient
Mirrors of their living days, hoping to see
Themselves pink once more with extravagance
Of blood and breath and bitter, tender form.
But let's not forget it is your wish too
To find your mother risen from the worm.
We all have reasons to look like you do.
And so we cherish with suspended breath
Those moments we discover life in death.
A poem from INSTINCTUAL
"High Above the Shoreline"
I like to look into the waves,
High above the shoreline foam,
A picnic on a palisade.
Terns sail by as if gaurdians
of a royal tapestry.
And I watch her
as she spreads honey
on a roll baked fresh this morning.
And I watch her
as the sun sparkles
in her dark, Gaulish eyes.
I like to live inside her days,
Nearer now than I have ever been
to uttering what only fools do say.
Protestations coming quick
in the moonlight.
And I need her
as she quietly molds
my rough-mannered speech.
And I need her
as the woodsman splits
logs in cold anticipation.
I like to look into her eyes,
Frozen in our closest moments,
Hearts caged in bodies paralyzed,
Her soul's defenses ripped
by nakedness.
And I kiss her
as she quietly sways
to the quickening tempo.
And I kiss her
as if I could taste
golden dew from heaven.
I like to live inside this spell,
Apart but for the summer
we spent on that green hill,
Our future and our memory
intertwined.
And I miss her
as the traveler
does a distant home.
And I miss her
as the ocean swells
in deep, mysterious rhythm.
Harry Flowers was kind enough to write a review of my book, INSTINCTUAL.
Instinctual(2006)
Tony Pucci
As the work of a curious mind, it would be imprudent of me to attempt to
weave together all the threads that form Tony Pucci's Instinctual in a
short review. The curious mind moves through the world any way it can,
seeking out the patterns that pique it's interest, joining all the dots
that comprise the night sky for that mind's unique eye. In setting out
some of those patterns for other minds to contemplate (in the form of
poetry, for example), it is only natural that other curious types (those
who read poetry, for example) would gravitate towards those bright points
that fit somehow into their own mental map of the cosmos, passing over the
darker, more obscure spots in the process, in a way that is often
unfathomable to both poet and reader alike. In short, there's no
accounting for taste.
In this fashion, my reading of Instinctual (over several weeks, in quiet
moments between other, louder, moments) has mapped out its own
constellation. This is the reader's prerogative, and their singular joy.
The zodiacal sigil I have taken from this work is formed by drawing a long
line from "Funeral", the first of nine sonnets (Shakespearean in form, if
you're asking), all the way to "An old man's dream", and then trining the
conjunction of "Vintage vogue" and "Neighbor lady", who burn the pages
opposite one another like binary suns.
The clearest themes I can discern in this quartet of poems are aging,
nostalgia, finitude of self, and the interconnectedness of community,
although this rather broad rendering of the complex of emotional states
they convey serves the works themselves rather poorly, just as singling
them out as a group inevitably undermines the variety of interconnections
they form with other pieces in the collection. Still, that's the price you
pay for forging a pattern.
The themes are traced through a series of deft observations (four young
girls at a funeral; a father missing his daughter; recollections of a
neighbor's own recollections), apt metaphors (including a particularly
graceful rendering of the life-as-water archetype) and pinpoint details
(notably the provenance of some colored glass bowls). But these are simply
the techniques and tools that Pucci utilizes to elicit the response, which
for me was a most delicious sense of melancholia shot through with a
paradoxical feeling of connectedness, and even hope; sadness is rendered
so vividly that it becomes something else, something bigger than what is
being depicted, transforming and inverting it, and therein (for me) lies
the true value of the poetic form: the transcendence of fancy language and
clever tropes into the realm of pure, visceral emotion. Just momentarily,
but long enough to have seen through the words.
Other readers will find other patterns, of course, and there are clearly a
range of preoccupations that Pucci explores across the pages of
Instinctual. The poet has played his part; it is now up to the reader to
find these patterns for themselves.
Harry Flowers
Houston, Texas
March 2006
A poem from HISTORIAN'S TALES
"When I Choose to Breathe"
There was a time when you
could have asked me for the world,
You could have then watched me
spin deliriously for your favor.
There was a time when I
would have claimed I adored you,
A time beyond appreciation,
A mind--a landscape deserted,
Parched by the sun of desire
and the hot wind of need.
I'd rather be quiet in my religion,
In the patterns I keep,
In the ritualistic sins where I dabble,
In the rote sayings with which
I greet each point of the day.
Through grace or luck this cathedral rose,
A house of god like all others,
A symbol of power while trying to touch heaven.
And though the marble gleams
with impressive facade,
And while the echoes of whispers and footsteps
gather to scratching cresendo,
It is those quiet nights under a rain-soaked moon,
The congregation appeased
and safely sheltered in their homes,
When I lightly tred amongst the candlelit pews,
The smell of wax and polish fair substitute
for your summer sweat-scented skin,
This is when I choose to breathe deeply.
