Saturday, December 25, 2010

CHRISTMAS, FOR EACH OF US

They've all staked out
so much room
in this transient SRO that,
at times, I'm the last one
in a very long line
to get to piss.
But what relief I feel has always
come with the crowd:
the singers, the poets,
the lovers and the haters
that swim the loop
from here to there.
They breathed life
into my blood;
stood me tall
when all I wanted to do
was fall into some gentle yawn.
Most of their lives, I know,
have been one kind of horror
or another. My youth
and stupidity
only knew exemptions
of which none of us
are. Luckily,
our horrors
are ours alone. Just knowing
that never diminishes,
but only adds to,
their song. And so, they sit
inside me
patiently waiting for me
to take them out again;
to make them
part of the whole.

I can imagine
one day
a chance meeting
and one will say: "Did you hear,
Savage's dead?"
"Which one?" the other replies
and laughs.
"What a bullshit artist."
"But a good one."

So, here's to them
and me, me and them,
us.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2010

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