THE TOWERS CRUMBLED AND MY BALLS, THOUGH SAGGED, ARE STILL THERE

The towers fell,
as did my marriage
a few years after.
Both left
their scars
inside
and out.
This decade
has not been kind
to any of us.

Yet, for me,
the old fears
are gone.
It must be because
I’ve done most things
at least
once
and having failed at them
done them again
and again
and again
probably
explains it.
After some time
your failures
are like your farts:
hardly noticeable and,
if they are,
not too bad--
for you
that is.

Physically,
I’ve never been worse:
my legs are shot,
my lungs wheeze and bubble with thick globs of yellowish phlegm,
diabetes has eaten parts of me whole,
my dick has taken off
to parts unknown,
my pump’s rewired and beats only
when medicated,
but the writing has never gone better.
What I thought was complicated,
like the inner workings of a cunt,
was really rather simple: if you stay
at it long enough,
have a little talent
and a little luck,
and work it
honestly
she will come
and so will
you.

This was not a trade-off
I knowingly made.
But after all the women,
all the jobs,
all the hirings
and all the firings,
all the misses
and near misses,
the hospitals,
institutions,
incarcerations
forced
and otherwise,
the dinners
and lunches
and afternoons,
the cops and the rent,
the hopes and handfuls
of shit...
it was rather nice to hear
Bach and Mozart last night
at Carnegie,
have a simple plate of Chow Fun
in Chinatown today,
come home
and put one word
after the other
until this
appeared.

It was so easy
even you
could do it.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2009