Tuesday, October 28, 2014

HONEY, I'M HOME,


I'd say,
to the walls.
And, I'd add,
I had a motherfucker
of a day.
I wanted
to put my fist
through every motherfucker
I met
or spoke to--especially
my prick of a boss.

At times
you need a hedge,
a sanctuary,
against the madness
outside
your front door,
or inside
the mosquito net
of flesh
you think
protects & wards off,
but instead flaps
against
the broken
spring.

Not all the time,
mind you,
but right
now.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014

Sunday, October 26, 2014

THE WORDS


come when
they want;
they have
their own
personality
for and against
what the struggling
heart tries to assert
in the most
in
art
ic
ulate
times.

If
you're any good,
it's like trying
to control
your bowels.
Forget it.
You need
to understand
nothing;
it will come
easily or
with much
pain. Either way
you'll feel it
when it does.
Or if you don't
or never do again--
that's alright
too.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014

Monday, October 13, 2014

THE POEM


has been going
into the novel
I'm working on;
it's a different
animal; it demands
more attention
instead of
the short bursts
of libido or id
that informs
the other.

The poem is
a sweeter smelling
fart, if you will;
it's a more perfect
ejaculation
and keeps the howl
to a minimum;
it yelps & whimpers
& whines within
discernible borders.

The novel
is messy,
even when
your aim
is also poetry
but of a different sort--
more like a beer shit,
messy and inclined
to get you and whoever
gets close
dirty
& befouled.

At my age
it is difficult
to do both
and so, for now,
unless it insists,
I'll struggle
with the longer
& fatter shit.

One has to
make a call,
& this one
was mine.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014

Thursday, October 9, 2014

WINNING THE NOBEL


They called up
Norman Savage
this morning
and told him
he'd won
The Nobel.
"Getthefuckouttahere,"
he replied
and went back
to sleep.

It's why
he won.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014

Monday, October 6, 2014

LIKE A KID


Apartment cleaned.
Sneakers shined.
Jacket & pant pressed.
Took a haircut.
Shaved.
Am even thinking
about cologne
for tonight,
tomorrow,
Thursday
& Friday--
dinner, dinner,
dinner & The Vanguard,
dinner & the blues,
--all to celebrate
being on The Savannah
for 67 years
and still hunting
and still
being hunted.

It still seems
so sudden.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014

Friday, October 3, 2014

NOT BAD


Closing in
on 67
is most
astounding
for someone
who was dying
every third
second.
I began
nursing
a type of mania
since eleven
and tried
to push
towards the other side
of the grass
with aplomb,
style
and relish.
I was bad
at living
and worse
at dying--lucky
for me.

I've lived
in a beautiful
neighborhood
for four decades
& tripped
around it
for a decade more;
I've ate well,
smoked some excellent
smoke, excelled at a
controlled excursion
into other forms
of consciousness and
enjoyed a living death
that only heroin offers.
I've heard musicians live
that were alchemists
of sounds; knew painters
who now hang
in places that folks pay
to get into; and have
enjoyed women of every stripe
and persuasion; I've had
gravy's gravy...sweets
that dizzy the brain;
and enjoyed the kinds of lows
that had those black twerlies
dance inside my lids,
making my gut swollen
with pain.

Even this past year,
as exquisite
and agonizing
as it was,
opened ways
unexpected:
it confirmed
a humanity
both stupid
yet profound
which I've tried
in my infinite
grandiosity
to ignore.
But to know love
& loss
& love
again
is something
that will burnish
the one now
who's near
and that can't
be diminished
because it can't
be lost
by accident
or squandered
by chance.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014