Thursday, June 4, 2009

THE GOOD EYE

for Chris Mooney

I am lucky
to sometimes see,
to sometimes taste
sweet syrupy honey
in the folds
of a spoon;
flesh or steel
matters less
and less.
I am young enough
not to be completely
hammered in. There’s that blow
between rounds. And
they can’t stop it.
My manager died,
I’ve made them
my trainers. My opponent
is kicking my ass
around the ring. I wink
at the part of him
that’s covered by stunning silk;
a right whooshes past
like underground train suction;
punches have a cauliflower sound.
I am not there.
I’m with a woman
who likes her men beaten
a little
around the edges, just a bit
spent. I’m ranked always,
but never dangerous
they figure. I never win
or lose officially; each fight
carried over. I fight
from a sense of defeat.
For some reason
they have always given me
the biggest and meanest
to try and teach me
lessons.
Tomorrow
there’s a poem I’ve been meanin’
to write, I say
in the clinches.
A poem, a poem,
you freak, a goddamn
poem you fuckhead shithead
freak cocksucker creep
I’m gonna rip your fuckin’ heart out;
I’m gonna make you pee blood,
faggot.
Hey,
that ain’t bad,
I’m gonna put that in;
like the rhythm; yeah,
that’s a good one.

The eye a slit
puffed with economics
and dumb stupid idiotic
mind-numbing jobs; jobs,
that are all, finally
dumb. Swollen, no matter
what you do, with wars
of marsh rats. Tigers
sold on forty-deuce glowing
with the urgency of Christ
killing off the right ones always
the right ones; a plan
so intricate we can’t see it,
they say. They had
too much time to themselves
to steal and secure; that part
is over. Slugs,
without lust, without song,
without fever; as loving as cancer
and not as good.

My eye is diseased, swollen
but never shut. And I
love it. I love it
when I slip it past em,
when I do it anyway.
He did hurt me,
especially in the 21st., 22nd.,
and 23rd. round.
I got some licks in
in the 24th. And am
still here in my own dark wood 30th.
He can’t understand why
the 31st. don’t mean shit
to me. He tries harder
for the big toe tag. From
the floor, swinging
for the bleachers; a tape measure
job. Hell,
I have always loved to fight someone
who telegraphs his shots.


Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1978

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