Saturday, January 31, 2015

PEEPING


the peeper
who peeps
the peeper
who peeps.

Fear not,
my love.
If I do not love
you, I do not love
at all and when
you stop
for a minute
or stop
at your grave
I will not
be loved
again.

Can you see me
getting dressed?
I'm going out
this midnight.
In this cold
February
of grief.
There is a ball
for exhibitionists.
My fingers
are all
I need
to warm
me--
though
your eyes
are essential
for this dance
to be danced, too.
Observe me
observing you
in your private
hell of dancing
lies, dancing
that delicious
Fascist rag.

Its perversion
is its passion.
Nothing more
than being
scared
shitless--
the beginning
of lust.

And isn't that
beautiful, too?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

Thursday, January 29, 2015

THERE'S NOTHING VERY PRETTY


about my poetry,
or about my love.
I've learned both
through mistakes,
false starts,
& feeling
my way
through thickets
laced with
illusions
great
& small.
It's been
a nightmarish
dream
of opposites.
I've believed in
my hard-headed
notions
of what
this all meant,
& its been proved
wrong in its
soft-headed
naiveté.

My writings
are ugly,
unpolished &,
more often
than not,
gross.
They're messy
& not easily
digestible.

But when
they go
down, if
they go
down,
they are good
to eat
a thousand years.

Bon appetite.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

LI NA & DENNIS


I saw
Li Na
& Dennis
on TV
the other night;
she's beautiful,
and tough,
and terribly
skilled.
He's heavy,
not very handsome,
but seems wise
beyond his years.
They both
have been
through love's
fires
and have come
out
the other side.

It made
this white Western man
very very
jealous.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

I WANT


you
to need
me
with such
force
the gods
will feel
hot
with
embarrassment.
They will fear
your greed
& single-
mind-
edness.
They will laugh
nervously
& wonder
how love
can be
this
cruel?
They will
write plays
on how
to love
like this
& still be
gods.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

WORDS


like youth
will, one day,
wake-up
& run;
they'll
take off
for greener pastures.
You'll chase
after them,
instinctually,
& trip
on a memory
or two.

Watch
your
step.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

Sunday, January 18, 2015

PRESIDENT OBAMA


has not,
as yet,
called
me. I don't
understand
why.
Certainly
he has to know
that writing
a poem,
especially
about a woman
that you're
in love with
or not,
is as
dangerous
as shooting
some stupid
Somali pirate
on the high seas,
or scaling the face
of a cliff
with your hands.

How does he not
know how crazy
your life is
when your heart
is in the hands
of the right
woman?

I think
he needs
to listen
to us
tightrope walkers
on high
falling
falling
falling
with only
our wits
to serve
as protection.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

Monday, January 5, 2015

IT'S A DRAG


to discover
what you're sure
is so
is so
wrong.
Brilliance
is never
so dull
as when
it shines
only upon
oneself
and all those
made-up
places.
Against
no light
it remains
black &
unenlightened.

Take dreams
for instance.
Mel Brooks
& Roman Polanski,
Woody Allen
& Ingmar Bergman
had dreams.
They also
had years
of analysis.
They also
read; they also
were genius'.
They knew dreams
had a navel
& knew
how to navigate
towards it.

It's dangerous
to go on belief
only in self
knowledge
especially
when there's nothing
tangible to hang
your hook on.
It's alright to suffer
alone,
but it's not alright
to inflict that suffering
on others
who love you.
It is one reason
the world is so full
of sadness.

I'm a teacher
by nature.
And a good one,
I believe.
I'm not, however,
an altruist.
I do have
selfish interests.
I'm most possessive
about you
& how you go about
the business
of living.
Yes, by all means
sound your depths;
and, yes, by all means
go down into it,
even if that implies
making mistakes.
I have to trust
that enough
of those mistakes
will lead you back
to me.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

Sunday, January 4, 2015

IT IS LOVE


that will eventually
run out; the love
won't run out
but time will.
Love
can never
run out,
but people
can. Time
ticks
& tocks
away.
We all
obey
a gravity
of nature.

There is never
a reason why
these things happen,
only many reasons
why they don't.
Clowns weep
& it's funny;
we weep
& it's sad.

And love sits
among the audience
laughing & crying
over the price
of tickets.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

Thursday, January 1, 2015

IT MUST BE LOVE


On New Years Eve
the woman
who's nuts,
writes to tell me
she's had dream
premonitions
predicting
my death
in ugly
fashion;
two of them,
actually, so it can't
be
a mistake.

She always was,
and apparently
still is, good
for a laugh.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

"HELLO, I MUST BE GOING"


New Years
was spectacular...





(I'm glad
that's over.)


Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015