Monday, July 18, 2011

"FUCK YOU" MONEY

At times,
the thought of having "FUCK YOU" money
intoxicated me.
Usually,
I was broke
or intoxicated.
Still,
it warmed me
like a kitten
curled up
around and inside
a dope sick brain.
It comforted me
before it grew
into a cat
and became
itself.

That love rush
of anger
before walking
out of a job
or a woman
is circumscribed
by age.
I've done it
at twenty
and at sixty.
It's the same deal
as it was for Huxley
when he spoke
of genius:
"any man can be a genius
at twenty-five,
at fifty it takes some doing."
Maybe
I'm still strong
or more possibly
still stupid,
but I'm still broke
and I still
walk.

Batter up.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

Monday, July 4, 2011

YOU CAN'T KICK LOVE


as if it were dope
or booze or coke
or reefer or pills
or money or any other thing
that's dead.
It takes more
than work
or incarceration
or substitutions
or institutions
involuntary
or chosen.
It doesn't leave
through the same doors
that piss or shit travels;
love laughs
at seventy-two hours
and it's out of your system jazz,
or days
or weeks
or years.
Love clings
to your guts
and wrenches you back
against your will
or better sense.

But you will try:
you'll think you've put it
out to pasture
or on a leash,
letting it graze
or tugging it the fuck back;
you'll try to frighten it
or massage it
sweet talk it
or beg it;
you'll laugh
you'll promise;
you'll lie
to it
and yourself;
you'll say
all that stupid shit:
a day at a time,
an hour at a time,
then a minute,
a second
at a time
and you'll still be
dumbfounded,
grinning like a man punched
in the stomach,
left on a platform
in the rain,
all the trains
full and hopeless.

When it happens
to you
I hope the dope was good,
almost pure, not cut
with shit. If you're gonna kick
you might as well kick over a love
that costs something
that gave as good as it got,
that gave you something to measure
a diminishing world against.
You want to kick over something
that puts your ass in the streets
again.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011