Monday, October 26, 2015

IT'S A BITTER PILL


to wake-up
sick
and alone
and south
of sixty.
Your chest
hurts
from an impossible
cough;
the phlegm
so thick
it sticks
to the side
of the drain;
your throat
beat-up
& raw;
hot eyes
& hotter
forehead.
Your bones
ache;
you're cold
& hot
& cold
again.
No one
asks
anything
of you
because
no one's
there;
no one
brings
an aspirin,
hot tea,
a kind
word--
mom
is long
dead;
your wife
has long
split;
breasts
have been
milked.
The cow
gives
nothing
but kicks.
Your ass
is exposed.
The doctor
is out
or busy
or needs
a doctor.
His nurse
sleeps
with the
orderly
& he
pushes
his own
pills.

You've arrived
at Coney Island's
nakedness;
the Stillwell Avenue
of the soul.
The train
stalls, the conductor
is a madman.
You take
a deep breath
& leap.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

1 comment:

  1. Love this, it actually provoked what it would feel like to be older and a man. Very well written. I felt that pang, of that disparate suffering (though I never have lived it and may not ever) in the way a great peice will sometimes inflict.

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