ON MY BIRTHDAY; THIS YEAR

"Survival is triumph enough."
Harry Crews

Whew!
I don't remember
how I got here!
so fast!
with fiction
behind me
I speed
toward the slowest
of conditions.

I'm the only one
that holds the pen.
so much power!, that
on Jane Street I ripped-up a dream
and neatly disposed it
in a trash can where it still
lies, smeared
yet legible.
it surprises even me
this want
for a strange warm pool
where water has the consistency
of evaporation.

in this myarid of highways
there is really only one
that gets traveled
and so many rules
are translated into one--
survival,
for as long as necessary
or possible.

Norman Savage
Coney Island, 1971