Saturday, June 22, 2013

TAKING OFF


is always fraught
with difficulties:
getting the flight,
making the flight,
surviving the flight.
You try
to pack
smart
but usually
don't:
too much shit
gets in the way:
vanity,
memory,
and insanity
of all kinds.
God forbid
you leave
without any
of the above.

Getting into
a relationship
is somewhat like that:
when young
most can fit
easily
into the overhead bin;
the ones
with a few miles,
those frequent flyers,
will need to use
the belly
of the plane.
Their arrival will,
of course,
take longer.
You become a slave
to the carousel
and the mismanagement
of technology;
often times
there's Customs.

We all go round and round
missing, or afraid of asking,
the most obvious
questions like:
why am I so lucky
to have made it
this far? and be blessed
this much?
Usually we all are far too
enamored of ourselves
to think like that.

My advice
to all you would be travelers,
especially to those coming here
to visit me:
Pack light.
I've got more than enough shit
for everyone.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013

Thursday, June 20, 2013

THE RUB-OUT

For Jimmy G.

Who knows
who did it?
or why?
All we know:
it was ordered
on high.

Maybe the gods knew
there was cancer,
or ALS, or a soft dick
at an early age
in his future
and he was so good,
so kind, so much above us,
that they wanted to spare him
the indignities?
Or maybe
he really was
a mean fuck,
a prick,
and busted-up women,
or a bastard son
who never could get
a sit-down with him
and they exacted
some kind of balance
we know
nothing of?

Maybe this,
maybe that--
who the fuck knows?
All we can know
is that it was done;
we don't know
who did it
or why.
We do know
it was done clean,
by a professional,
who did it quick
and left
no trace.
We also know
Jimmy G. will be missed,
but only for a little while,
then we'll forget
until the next big hit
is ordered.
But just think:
if a guy like him
could get whacked
out of the blue
none of us are safe.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

AN ACCOMPLISHMENT OF SORTS


Any man can get laid
in a whorehouse
with a thousand dollar bill
in his fist,
but to get laid
in one without a dime--
man, that's sayin somethin.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013

Saturday, June 15, 2013

LOVING SOMEONE ELSE

The Betty Poems

is ridiculously hard
for some people,
but not as hard
as loving yourself.
And if the other
is yourself--
just with different genitalia
--it's harder still.

But don't worry.
There's good news:
If we just get
one of those right,
we'll get the other.
And we have a lifetime
to figure it out.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013

THERE ARE SOME


who you will never see
in a crowd;
they do not belong
to a gang,
to a movement,
or to a discipline.
They have their own bones
and gnaw on them
alone. They prefer
to just get their work done.
They adhere
to no philosophy
and make things up
as they go--
sometimes
day to day,
minute to minute.

But we
count on them
to distract us
by turning out
a book, a painting,
a symphony
that defies our
somnambulant expectations
and lasts longer
than a typical meal
of Chinese food.
Some of those odd folk
produce nothing
at all,
yet still make art:
you can spot them,
if you look
closely
as they negotiate
the steps
on or off a bus;
or sweeping the dirt
from street corners,
or shaking down shelves
in supermarkets
turning each can's label
facing front.

How it happens
or why it happens
I don't know.
Like the time
I saw a 21 year old,
a babyman,
grinning from ear
to ear strung-out
in a mirror's shards
cut from the knife
of a Coney Island dealer,
but came at him anyway,
blood flying into his face
and eyes.
I wonder where
I went?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013

Friday, June 14, 2013

KILLING TIME

I became expert at:
mangling minutes,
and strangling hours;
whole days
pissed away: beaten,
plundered, ripped apart
and torn, sheared,
stitched
together
and pulled
loose again;
drowned and spit upon
and pummeled until
they lied
bruised, broken,
and used
up.
It was thought
to be
a filling-up
of space, getting
from here
to there.
No big thing,
I thought.
I thought:
Forcing things
was useless;
mastering
was even less;
wanting
was ridiculous;
and showing yourself
worse.


Had I known
how the game worked
I would have worked
it the same. Now,
there is less
time and less
of me to kill.
And though
there are some
who might think me
the fool,
I think
how lucky I was
to have had
all those stupid days
to fuck with
and play with
and carve
with such style
and elan
that make this keyboard
sing and dance
by fingers
educated
by the blood stains
of those murdered minutes.
Nothing
is lost
to memory
and a mind
fine-tuned
by the inverted
gun.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011-2013

Thursday, June 13, 2013

THE BONES OF GRATITUDE


Most men marry
the first woman
they've fucked--
hookers excepted;
those though,
when all is said
and done
were most likely
the more honest
of the two and
the hotter fuck.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2010-2013

I'VE ALWAYS SAT


near doors or
exit signs;
an easy escape
from myself
and other things
human.
A quick glance
is all I need
to survey
and size-up
the scene
and its inherent
hostility:
either too much
brains or brawn.
I love my neighbor,
of course,
with as much ardor
and abandon
as I love myself:
darkly,
skeptically,
imperfectly,
foolishly,
and capable
of anything.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2010-2013

IT TALKS

to me
in rhymes
and talks to me
in unmetered sentences;
it talks to me
through spider's webs
and the screams
of caught flies.
It moans
from basements
and balcony ledges.
It's on the breath
of women
and my last
boss who let me
go.
It talks to me
from children
just learning
how to ride
two-wheelers;
and whispers
from their cut faces
and broken bones
after their first spill.
Sidewalks
talk to me
weary from the worn heels
of weary men or
the hard stiletto step
of hard women.
It talks to me
from jails,
from madhouses,
from university towers,
from burnt and gutted cars,
from the yachts and Rolls Royces
of mannered and dainty gentry
and the slobbering lunatics
inside the lofts
of artists.
It talks to me from trees
and clouds
and birds
and fish.
It speaks from lemons
and honey; it springs
from circus arcs
and pilgrim's steps.
It talks through inquisitions
and boredom and the tricks
of hummingbirds.
It does not weep
or laugh; it does not allow
or deny; it just
is: Coming, coming,
coming soon
to a theater near you:
Mr. & Mrs. Death
appearing
nightly.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village 2009-2013

MORSE CODE


My father,
an Army vet,
taught me
the Morse Code
for "help."
And I needed some
to get away
from him
mostly.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village 2010-2013

RETINITIS PIGMENTOSA


As soon as I saw
my parents
my world
got smaller.
I was pushed
into pockets
of fear
and flight.
When I saw them
for what they were
and saw people
for what they were
everything
got smaller.
Then
I saw myself
for what I was:
small
and insignificant.
Suddenly,
I was smaller
no longer.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village 2009-2013

A MAD SCRAMBLE


There is the mad scramble
of youth
to get there,
to make it,
to be noticed,
admired,
and loved
by all
you see
or say hello
to
until the knees
buckle and shoelaces
weep.

Then,
the scramble,
a bit madder,
to stay there
wherever
there is.

And,
finally,
the maddest
scramble to
unscramble
the scramble.

I'll take mine
with bacon.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2009-2013

THE WARRANTY HAS EXPIRED

and you're the last owner
who's going to drive
this car.
It's not as fast:
cylinders clogged,
brakes worn,
upholstery faded--
somewhat torn--
(a spring
could stick
in your ass),
shoes need
a new set,
paint thinning,
headlights dimming,
but it still will,
I promise,
get you where
you're going.

What's that?

No, sorry,
it's simply rust.
They don't make
nuts anymore
for those screws.
Sorry.

What's that?

No, sorry,
that model
has been
discontinued.

What's that?
Why?
Doesn't seem
they're in much demand
anymore.
If you're able to maintain it,
for ten, maybe fifteen years,
it might be a "classic,"
and then
you'd be rich.

What?

Sorry, no,
I can't
guarantee it.

What?

Don't get angry
at me, honey.
Don't blame me;
blame the
manufacturer.
We have another model
over here.
Hey,
where ya going?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013

BEING IN LOVE IS FUCKED-UP

The Betty Poems

more so at sixty-five
than at fifteen,
especially when it's
your first time
really feeling
that sort
of craziness.
It shouldn't happen,
you say,
to yourself;
those molecules
that did a St. Vitas dance
should have long ago
rested their weary legs;
those adolescent agonies
should have given way
to a complicity
with the bodies
betrayal
and the beckoning
of the grave.

But no.

Your paranoia
does pirouettes
in your brain:
where is she,
who's she with,
who's she fucking.
Your heart
is halved
by her absence.
Your soul
scratches
against the nothing
inside it and
the nothing
outside.
And all the while
you're exhilarated,
and off balance;
you're a compendium of want
textured by grief
and longing; a language
you haven't heard
and can't learn
because all the books
that taught it
have been burned
and there's no more
pulp except
inside your three remaining
teeth and your dentist
wants to fuck her
too.

This is serious
if I want to stay alive.
I cannot concentrate
on much of anything
except her. I'm sure
she knows that
and turns the screws.
The pain
is pleasurable. She knows
that too.
Fuck her.
Fuck me.
And
while we're at it:
Fuck you, too.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

ME & MY GIRL

The Betty Poems

are back together;
she wrote me
an email that was supposed to be
innocuous, neutral,
without emotion,
but wasn't;
and I sent her
two songs
for her birthday
that I wanted her to think
was for her benefit,
but wasn't.
soon
we were writing
and talking
and falling
in love
all over again.

songs, like all art,
are contrived,
are fantasies.
and even though
we know that,
even though we know
that what we have
is anything but really real,
we also know
that nothing else
is really real either,
and both of us
would rather feel real
than be real.
And that
is as real
as it gets.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013

MY BABY'S BIRTHDAY

The Betty Poems

is coming up
and in some way,
anyway,
I want to be there--
in person, in voice,
in spirit--
to celebrate it
with her.
Two people in love
should be in love
on days of love--
marriage
sickness
birth
death
Ben Casey
infinity
--and the dross
and dullness
of life.
But we're still
on the outs.
We're behind bars,
murdering
our gift;
we sniff
around our degenerate
lives and invite
misery
to climb aboard
and travel well-worn
arteries and veins
of hummingbirds
inside the cat's
mouth.
Crapshooters
and night crawlers;
pederasts of the cloth
and women angels
of the night singing
prayers of the luck
to the luckless.

As the needle inches
its way toward full
it implies the other
empty. We believe
we have just so much
to give before
it runs out. So,
we remain,
on the outs.
A concession
is worse than death:
somebody wins
somebody loses.
You might think
at sixty-five
I wouldn't give
a fuck.
You'd be
wrong.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013