PROSTITUTES, PARASITES...AND YOU

"Name me someone who's not a parasite and I'll go out and say a prayer for him."
--Visions of Johanna
--Bob Dylan

Artists
are the worst:
sucking your blood
or sucking your cock;
there's Dante's circles
and your family
and closest friends;
then there's Nature
sucking up
your carbon.
We are each other's ticks,
and gnats and mosquitoes,
bedbugs and crabs and bacteria
alive on the skin,
grabbing on to mucous
membranes, intestinal linings and tissue,
picking the pockets
of students and clients,
husbands and wives,
children and grandchildren.
It's the daisy chain
of moves and countermoves.

Prostitutes sell themselves
short. They never factor in
the cost of putting a cost
on their time and time
really is
our most precious
commodity.

One day
the title
of this poem
will be a course
at The New School's
Adult Division.
Folks will pay
hundreds of dollars
to suck the wisdom
out of text & totem
and philosophize
meaning. They might
get together
after class
to discuss
the discussion
they had
a minute ago
and suck
some more.
They'll go home
eventually
with a little less
blood and a little more
illusion. It's our own
soap opera, our only station.
And I'll be back
same time
next week.

Stay tuned.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015