INFUSED, TRANSFUSED, CONFUSED...BUT COOL

Every once in awhile--
rarely really
--you come across a person,
or a person comes across you:
woman, teacher, friend,
who shares something
of their soul:
words turned
to color turned
to music
til they swirl
and dance
to an unknown
rhythm
wholly their own
and before
you're conscious of it
it's taken up
residence
and lives
inside
of you
too.
Your body moves
differently
from then on;
your brain
discovers new byways
and passages
and chemicals
unsuspected.

All of a sudden
Vachel Lindsey fucks
with you,
or Jerry Hopkins or
his cousin Lightning,
stuffy T.S. becomes a hip
kitty along with Stevens,
Hem and W.C.W.
Louis C dances with Hank B,
they marinate
with each other,
simmer and season,
with Bee and Bach and Gustave
while Cecil, Duke and Pops
and Thelonious tap their feet.

Each time those doors opened
was special: a red scarf
over a yellowish light
in a chambermaid's room
in Provincetown
turned-on Prufrock; a reefer filled,
East Village, tub in the kitchen
five floor walk-up presented Trane;
a long-distance call with Hank
in some L.A. shit hole
freed Jeffers.
Different times,
different ages,
but the same feeling:
getting hard.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013