HIT & MISS

A lot of words--
over fifty years worth
of putting one word
next to another
--was bad
writing.
Either I was too young,
or too drunk,
or too drug addled,
or too stupid,
to do a better job; but
some of it
hit the mark.

All of it,
however,
was wasted.

And only some of you
will understand
that.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013

HISTORY MAKES FOOLS OF US ALL

The Betty Poems

when you really get down to it:
what you thought
were great: like the words
from the pens of masters
who spun profundities
like so much cotton-candy
sticking to the sugar starved
spaces in your head,
are not so
very great.
and the dynasties that have risen
claiming a hold on the imaginations
of dreamers and future conquerers
have been sullied and vanquished
like those female beauties
who struggled too much
with lipstick and high heels;
our fantasies quickly
wilted
leaving only memories
to be chewed, gnawed,
and spit out.

Andy's fifteen minutes
have been reduced
to nanoseconds--
if that. Whether it's wars
or poems or packaged stars.
Each fade or get lost
in the noise
of the moment. Even death.
Even the deaths that make you think
how could the world not stop
with acknowledgement, let alone reverence,
doesn't. And even though that death
might be sad, even tragic,
are not sad nor tragic. It is all too
dramatic, orchestrated, scripted, all
a trick to just
keep us going to keep us hoping
to keep us showing up
to punch the time-clocks
with the same sense of failure
we had yesterday
and not punch ourselves out
of the coma.
We can fool ourselves
with fame, money, even love,
but that's like putting a bandaid
over someone gut shot.

We like to think that age
makes us wise,
but our years of wisdom
lies in front of us
always. We think
we might catch it
and we do
for a second
and the wisdom
turns on us
again.
And so we sit,
sit to it,
on sofas
of discontent,
watching,
sucking our lip,
thinking of all the things
we no longer have to do:
work, love, understand.
We just have to get up
more often to piss,
strain against the sun scratched day,
think of children thinking
of monkeys,
pretend that bitterness
tastes good
in an upturned mouth,
close our eyes
when the afternoon heat
makes us lazy
and drift into
a sleep without
rest. We will conjure
up memories of all the pretty girls
in ankle socks
pink lipstick, nails pink
and chipped and perfume
store bought and sweet, so sweet
that it stands between
the fall of rose petals
wrinkled and oily.

It is not the day
nor the hour; it is neither
a plan nor a conceit; it is
simply the anthill of us
never being able to know
the life of lions.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013

TO MY LOVER

The Betty Poems


I'm not a nice man.
I'm jealous, insecure,
somewhat cruel,
paranoid, narcissistic,
self-centered and selfish.
I demand attention
and come before
your family, friends,
interests and inclinations.
You're not allowed
to have had a life
before me
and certainly not one after.
I cannot be cut
from your thoughts
and even the rare times
I am not visible
my phantom limbs will be;
and they will be painful.
You can kick and scream
about it--that's only fair--
but that will only add
to the joy of loving me.
Still,
it's important to retain
your sense of humor--
at least for me it is.
I've never liked,
let alone loved,
those too serious
about their plight.
There's plenty of suffering
to go 'round.
I'm only trying
to get rid of some
of my own.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013

SOME POEMS

come out
fully formed
like a good shit
that leaves
your asshole
clean
and just drops
without a mess
to clean-up.
I like that.
It's like having kids
and not have to raise
the motherfuckers.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013

BEAUTY

is like genius:
most everyone has it
when young;
but show it to me
when fifty--
now you're sayin somethin.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013

THE POOR GIRL

The Betty Poems

has a digestion problem.
It does not matter
that she is brilliant
and beautiful. No matter
how much
it's never enough.
Pain
is the only
by-product
that gets
absorbed.
She sits,
spitting out
or puking-up
happiness
in whatever
she swallows--even,
or especially,
me.

And the only doctor
she will admit
to help her
is male.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013

MORE THAN MY FAIR SHARE

I know what it's like
staying on a crap table
for more than thirty minutes
making pass after pass
after pass; or getting laid
in a whorehouse
with no money; pissing more
than most people drank; or feeling
the purple fear of powerlessness
alone, as a blood red sun set
or rose on invented days
as the tin foil ways of my life
shook the glinting sun
into the corners of a brain
that no longer worked
or really wanted to.

I know what it's like
winning games
by half points,
and losing some
as well; or getting beat
by a twelve year old
drug dealer
in some south Bronx shit hole.
I know what it's like
eating for free at Le Cirque,
The Four Seasons; sipping
on three hundred dollar bottles
of red wine or white wine
from Oregon and France
while cracking open shell fish
from the cold waters of Maine
with the owners
at the owner's table
in the kitchen
with the chef.

I know what it's like
to talk wise
to the makers of fine leather shoes
from Italy and
the shoeshine men
on 42nd Street; to enjoy
two boys going at it
for fifteen rounds
and fucking whatever whore
was on my arm
that evening, the springs
being as hot and bloodied
as the ring.

I know what it's like
to have love
but never loved
back--not in ways
that went beyond
the act. And had thought
I was beyond that,
incapable of making those
contritions, leaving me alone
but peaceful. Coming
from where I did
it all made sense.
But then you came,
jimmied my door,
forced your way
in, lifted me
by my neck and shoulders
shook me out
of my wet and rumpled clothes
and fucked me silly.
I surrendered
without much
of a fight.
For the first time
I knew what expectation meant,
what senses were designed for,
why a heart was made to beat,
why brains functioned better
confused and heated. I knew why
I had to breathe.
What I did not know
is how love lies
without meaning to;
how each body moves
in its own orbit
and sometimes that orbit
is repelled by the sun.
And now I know
absence born
by desire
but that is fine
with me. At least
I now know what it's like
to have had it once
the way the poets
had it; the way fools
have it; the way children
have it. And that will have to do--
it has to--
for now.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013