Thursday, May 26, 2011

TIGHT HOT EVERYTHING

It's 80+
in NYC
today.
It was 80+
yesterday
as well.
Winter
has finally given way
to a less worthy opponent: hope.
Each new thaw
is like love
arriving
for the first time
fevered
with expectation.

Young girls
and older women
have bared
themselves
of everything
except mystery;
tits and hips and ass,
arms and shoulders
and backs and legs
are in abundance.
Only the pussy
is hidden,
but men have never been good
at finding it anyway.
Besides, women
will try and save it
for a real illusion.

Old fucks
like me
are eternally young,
but most are thought
to be harmless,
while young hounds
are stiff
with howling. Rarely,
are there a shortage
of suitors.
Soon,
there will be
free fireworks
on boardwalk evenings,
fumbling with a bra strap
and zipper;
the stickiness
of two souls
spinning together,
then break-ups
and make-ups,
and promises
and new starts
and false starts
and restarts;
some making it
for awhile
most bowing out
to look again.
It's the same with short-order cooks
in diners
around the world:
scramble two
and don't
burn
the toast.
You hope
you can last
the shift.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

Monday, May 23, 2011

JOPLIN, MISSOURI

has seen
its share
of disasters.
Recently,
a twister
mangeled
its inhabitants
silly.
It seems
the city
has a pedigree
for this kind of thing:
In 1945
my parents
got married
there.
He, a private
in the Army;
she, a sheltered
Jewish babe
from Brooklyn.
She traveled
in that hot summer
to do the deed
at his urging.
I suppose he used
the same line
that other G.I.'s believed:
c'mon baby,
before I die;
or words
to that effect.
It took her
all day
to find a room
that rented
to Jews.
He was learned
in the ways
of the world
and knew
that cash
spoke at least as loud
as Christ.
They were matched
and mismatched
from the start.
Probably
the same disturbances
that create
tornadoes.
The proof of that
is that neither I
nor my brother
recognize
each other
but remember well
what we used to
look like.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

TRYING TO BE HIP

when younger
had me rubbing
up against
older artists
and bohemians
of many flavors:
painters, poets,
and musicians
mostly.
They showed me,
informed really,
about how to smoke
reefer, eat Japanese,
and shoot dope
in the mid-sixties
with a nonchalance
that was meant to attract
little notice.
They schooled me
about what to read
and how to read;
what to see
and how to see it;
how to listen
to the past
and hear the future
identifying voices
and motives.
I was told one day
about a film
(it was called "a flick" back then),
Jazz On A Summers Day.
I did as I was told
and saw it.
It helped my hipness,
but hurt it as well.
I pass it on to you,
but not
for your hipness
only your
enjoyment.
That's all
we really
have.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/embed/L36AhSocVlc