Sunday, July 25, 2010

THE SECRET

Everything'
a poem.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2010

Thursday, July 8, 2010

MEDITATION ON RACE & BULLSHIT

We are waiting
on Lebron
to make a decision
tonight
on our national sports
platform.
Ho hum.
He'll decide
to play
on any one of five
hardwoods in major
commercial markets.
Whatever decision
he makes
will make me sad;
sad for the souls
of all black folks
and sad for the white folks
who's souls were black
who's assholes
he's fucking
without knowing
he's fucking them.
I think of Jack,
fingers in the cunts
of blond broads,
gold teeth blinding
the eyes of cops;
Joe & Sugar Ray,
Jack Robinson, & X,
& MLK, & Marcus & Stokely,
Roi/Amiri, Spike & Chris;
white Jews who traveled
South, placed barricades
& dodged dogs
& clubs; Abernathy, Ashe,
Ali, Dundee, & LBJ that Texas
shitkicking ballbreaker.
All that work; all that
blood; all that grief; all
those lives. For what?
So that we now have a new vaudeville
filled with entertainers?
New blackface. New dancers & partners &
singers of tunes
so easily forgotten like Chinese food
on a Sunday.

It seems the worst
of the white race
have won.
They've taken the best
of rhythm, dance, speech,
sound, colors, grace, strength
and style and breathed it in
and exhaled a corporation,
a label,
a signifier,
a signature,
that lures us into
the worst sleep.
It has given us Lebron
and Barack;
nice enough people, perhaps,
but without edge,
without courage,
without heart.
I look at the ghettos,
the schools,
the prisons,
the six o'clock news,
and see further erosion
of most things
black without barely a glance
a word
from our president.
He has been deft
at using his race
to avoid it
while signifying it.
The country
and the world
as is
deserve no better.
We've known
for a long time
what is right
and made a left
turn.

Ho hum.

I had hoped
against my wish
not to hope
that Lebron
and some of the others,
would have stepped forward
and played for MJ
in Charlotte
for, if they had to,
slave wages:mere
millions.
Not because I'm especially fond of MJ,
which I am,
but because he could use their help and
he's black. The first
black owner
in NBA history. Maybe some think
that's no longer something,
but it is.

Watching the Celtic/Cav series,
I saw Lebron collapse
from a champion's stress;
they took his heart
and stopped it.
He was a long way from Ali
not stepping forward or
coming out for the last round
in Manilla.
Lebron looked
like he wanted to be taken out.
Fuck em,
I said to myself,
and moved on.
Now,
this most favored of gifted athletes
wants money
and championships
and will create
the most direct line
to get them--
and he will.
And in these times,
he will be idolized
by millions,
if not billions
who have
the memory
and heart
of a flea.

Ho hum.
Pass the salt.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2010

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

MY TOILET SEAT

is, at least,
30. I bought it
from a horseplayer,
diabetic, hardware store owner,
I used to drink with
at a saloon
across from my
coffin shaped
apartment
after my original--
a wooden yellow one
--cracked.
It has served my ass
well,
as well as the ass'
of others,
especially women,
well as well.
It has cradled, coaxed,
implored, and pleasured
the elimination of bodily
wastes, exasperations,
and miseries while,
at times,
giving rise,
to dreams, fantasies and,
of course,
relief.

The screws
and bolts
that secure it
have long ago
come loose;
a tightening
is always necessary.
The seat itself,
has blackened smudges
and dots
from ashes
and lit cigarettes
that fell upon it
when I was drunk
or junk nodding.
Sometimes,
when the tip
of the cigarette
would hit my dick,
it would jolt me out
of whatever reverie
I was lost in.
Holy shit,
I'd say,
as I jumped up,
Fuck,
I continued,
brushing the ash
from my dick
and thigh, then
light another smoke
and try to get back into it.

Now,
I no longer drink,
or shoot dope,
but the seat remains.
Throw that shit out,
I sometimes say
to myself.
But I don't want to;
I want to remember.
I want to remember
not the misery of a time--
for all time is miserable--
the times of madness
and bliss; the times
where time had no meaning
and passed
unnoticed
especially
by myself.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

RETIRED TEACHERS, INDEPENDENCE DAY

try to fuck with
the word
the brush
the melody
after a lifetime
of compromise.
Their spirits,
if they started
with any,
have been beaten
to a nub
by a perfect illusion
fed
by their own
delusions.

Their words
are weak,
too mannered,
safe;
their paintings
thin
& boring;
their sounds
murdered
by age; they now
try to make sense
out of their lives' chaos
not realizing
that chaos has always had
its own sense.
They are only astute
at remembering
their file numbers
and monthly
pensions.
Most, deserve
no better.
Fear
dictated most
of their choices;
and fear
dictated their antipathy
toward the kids
they taught.

Still,
I've been lucky,
to have met a few
who catered
a sweet mix
of insanity and light;
who knew
my eyes
took in
their legs
and hiked their skirts higher;
who knew my despair
about being alive
in my young cage
and fed me the raw meat
of ideas
and their opposites
which
allowed me
joy
of a kind
and opened up
ways
and
most importantly
exits.

On this day,
I lift a glass
to them--
the good ones,
the glad ones,
the mad ones,
the soul spent ones--
before, now, forever;
tonight
and
always.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2010

Thursday, July 1, 2010

YEAH, I NAILED HER TOO

Fortunately
or not,
nothing much
is lost
to memory.
She made me think
of that girl I wanted to fuck
when fifteen
while me
and the legion of other cripples,
the old
the infirm
the mad
waited for the soon to be extinct M1 bus
rather than fade
the murderous underground transit
here, in NYC.
She was a pretty young thing,
jaunty, perky, her nipples
proudly displaying
a taste me sign
for those lucky enough
to get that close.
50 years ago
there was another
much like her
who pivoted
before my teenaged fever
touched her
instead
choosing a tough
tattooed Italian
I used to hang with
a bit older
than me.
It bothered me,
but not too much;
I was getting enough
from other angels of the night--
community whores--
and had a few others
on, or near,
the hook.

Ten years later,
we met again. She
living with her mother;
me, living with my devils,
and we finally fucked.
What turned her head around
is not for me to say.
Perhaps, attraction,
though I doubt it;
more likely desperation
and a way for her
to get out.
But I was somewhere else, too.
I was only looking for "exits,"
not caring or knowing that
there is none
except the one
that's permanent,
but knowing that
gave me a kind of freedom
while going down the sinkhole
and playing in the swill.

Now,
I can't fuck anyone
except me
and only metaphorically.
The cock,
I've learned,
reluctantly,
does not come
with a lifetime
guarantee. Still,
it's been a good
ride. I've gotten
more than my fair share,
and can't complain.
So,
I
won't.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2010

CHEAP AT HALF THE COST

Getting out
from the asylum
of my childhood,
I put guns
and words,
whores
and nice pretty girls,
whiskey & dope,
books & bromides,
between
the chambers
of my heart.
It cost
whatever it did
then
which I never thought
overpriced.
Now,
my legs are shot,
my lungs
closing,
my pump
rewired,
some toes
swim
with the fish',
but the pen
still flashes
imperial sparks.
Even if I knew
all of that then
it would still have been cheap;
not that I knew
any better way.