Monday, November 30, 2015

NOTHIN HAPPENIN



My head has been emptied
of its dance,
of its music,
of its magic.
It feels
hollow.
Women
no longer
beckon;
the dog,
old
& mangy,
no longer
barks.

There's mysteries
aplenty under
the clothes;
whispers between
the folds
of a skirt.

The silence
unnerves me.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

Thursday, November 26, 2015

A THANKSGIVING FOR MONGRELS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGb5IweiYG8

A genius in the blood
both vile and rabid,
bit the country's
flesh and inflicted
a pure poison that runs
through arteries and veins
pulsating coast to coast.

The car is driven
by hunger. Beauty
is in marriage,
alchemy is fertile
& febrile &
forbidding.

It's Peggy Lee
aching. While
Captain Smith
& Pocahontas nutty
as kittens,
discover other,
more sacred lands
to explore.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

TONIGHT I HUNT


turkeys. A month
from now, reindeer
& clowns
in red suits.
It's come to that.
I believe
in America &
the American way:
you eat
what you kill--
first you
then me--
and always make time
for commercials.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

NATURE


I'm a loner
by nature,
no matter
how much
I secretly
(I think)
crave
company.

I've been asked
what I'm doing
Thanksgiving?
To each
I've replied:
I'm busy.
I'm not
busy.
I'm busy
trying
to be busy:
take myself
to a movie;
cook lamb stew;
stay alive
for a bit longer.
How I do that
is how I've done it
for sixty eight years:
bob & weave, avoid
being hit
too hard,
& playing
with my typer's keys.

So far
so good.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

Monday, November 23, 2015

A STORIED HISTORY


I come out
of a long
& proud
tradition
of addiction.
My mother
was the first
to have her mouth
opened
to greet
a five milligram
valium rolling
off the conveyer belt
back in the fifties
before the word "generic"
was coined.
My father
was pretty good
with the codeine
& scotch;
he was also quick
with the belt
whistling through
his pant loops
& whipping me
& my brother. He
was so good
at hiding his shit,
he was voted dad
of the year
by those Jews
of appearances.

The blood of cowards
runs through our veins.
Blissfully,
we treat each day
as a stranger
to be feared: Like you,
today, arriving
on my doorstep
weary & beaten-up
from your long long journey,
wanting to believe
you've found
a more forgiving home
only to find another
searching heart
instead.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

Thursday, November 19, 2015

IT'S HARD TO BELIEVE


that most of the people
you see out there
have ever enjoyed
sexual intimacies
of any kind.
Who the fuck
would ever want
to be with them,
you think
to yourself,
let alone kiss
their lips
or hold
their hands?
There's no way,
you go on,
that his dick
was ever sucked
or her pussy
ever licked. No way.

But you'd be wrong.
There is someone.
Maybe you?
Maybe me?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

MY BODY


has gotten
too old
for my brain;
it fucks
with my
imagination
of what
can be done
& who
it can be done
with.
If you want
to understand
betrayal
start
with yourself.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

Monday, November 16, 2015

HELP WANTED:

For E.H.

DRUG ADDICT:
FLEXIBLE HOURS.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

Saturday, November 14, 2015

PARIS--WHEN IT SIZZLES


500 people last night
thought they were about
to enjoy themselves.
They were about to eat,
have a cocktail, smoke
a little weed
or a Gauloises & listen
to some twisty music.
They were ready to move
their bodies or minds or
both; have a taste of
some hip Cambodian fare,
enjoy the evening air
and savor a few days
of not working.
Little did they know
there's a caliphate
that frowns on such
hedonism, such frivolous
displays of sin. That
couldn't give a fuck
about iPhone51S (X or Y or Z)
or Facebook Likes
or Dislikes or fools
who are loving
the wrong god.
Paris prided itself
at being
at the vanguard
of thought & now
must think
& think again
about what they
think about...
& where they go,
& who they go with,
& who goes with them.
There is a hunger
for something pure:
something without
the fucked-up footprint
of man:
pure heroin;
pure pleasure;
pure food;
pure devotion.
I say this:
all interpretations
of god
needs to be
beheaded.

Where
can I get
a drink?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

Friday, November 13, 2015

TRAPPED


Failing to remember
to remember
to forget
is punishable
by remembering
things forgotten.
But how else
do we
go on?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

Thursday, November 12, 2015

THE GROOM BLEEDS


upon the alter
of sacrifice
while his bride
bandages his side.
It's my period
of paranoia,
he muses,
as he watches
the priest work
the crowd
in the most holy
three-card monte game
this side of Times Square.

It comes but once
a month this roundtable
of sin: knaves & knights,
poker playing miscreants
wielding anvils
of despair.
"Marry for life!"
cries the villagers,
as effective as pigeons
ground in an engine's turbines.

There are women
who enjoy the hunt
every bit as much as men.
And there are men
who are better chefs
once the meat is cured.
It is not our business
who is fleeced
& slaughtered;
our only concern
is how we are led
into the pen.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

I REMEMBER


I felt pain,
but not how
that pain
felt. I felt love
but can't remember
that either.
I know they bled
together, but that,
too, escapes me.
Same thing with lust,
& joy, & misery, & fear.
I cannot conjure
their presence
except that their presence
was as real
as breath.
It's like that
with everything
remembered:
spaces taken
that remain
empty
empty
empty.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

Sunday, November 8, 2015

NOTHING TO UNPACK


He'd come
to the end
of meaning.
Sitting,
on his cardboard valise
busted-up from some hard miles,
at another crossroads.
There were no ladies
who rested comfortably
in their beds
who expected him; no
discourse on youth
or their expectations
or promises. Here
there were no rails
to ride on or cars
to thumb down.
Here,
was naked
& left to chance.
Here,
was nowhere.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

Saturday, November 7, 2015

ONE FOR MOSE


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzTYOJQsw-Q

It was a time,
and it was an attitude.
It was New Orleans
raw & dangerous, when evenings
were leaned in to
& junk was still a black thing
& young white boys wanted
to be in the know
thought they knew
how to be black.
Dive clubs & hip kitties.
Poses & jazz
& simple lives
turned impossibly
complicated.
It was a time
when musicians could play
for a week & work ideas
into riffs & people listened
& nodded
their heads
in sympathy
& agreement.
Men knew
the impossibility
of women
& women knew
the impossibility
of men
ever hoping
to come out
of childhood.

We were young
& beat-up;
seeing too much
before we were able
to see our place.
Oysters were a quarter;
a beer and a shot
was seventy-five cents;
and last call
was never.
We'd thought
we'd gotten beyond the haze
into the meaning; we'd thought
that we could escape
our lives
by pissing on them.
The only thing we caught
was our own hair
in the zipper...& boy
did that smart.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

Friday, November 6, 2015

STUDYING REGALITY ON THE SEVENTH AVENUE BUS



She had painted
her cunt hairs
violet
& gold.
I entertain
only royalty,
she whispered.
They are
the only ones
who are allowed
to enter
and exit
my secret
chamber.
My cock
grew crimson
with serf-like
agitation.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

Thursday, November 5, 2015

HOW WOMEN


open themselves
up
for you
has always
been
magical,
whether
to love
or
to kill
or to do
both
is nature's
lubricant.
How subtle,
how nuanced,
how the wetness
glistens
on cherry-pink lips
thick
with flavor
of a million bees
gone mad with fruition.
How unlike men
they are,
tank-like men,
men coming
at them
with their steel treads
& beetle-like opinions.
Huffing & puffing
yet providing
the smell of domination
upon a fertile
but heretofore
barren
landscape.

How mismatched
they are,
and perfect.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

TOMORROW


my agent
will call
with news
that's good;
and my brother
will show-up
with magic numbers
on a lotto ticket;
& my heart
would not fail;
& my toes would grow
back & someone
would fall in love
with my words
and have to
take me
with them;
& my nose
would not get longer,
but my dick would,
& cigarettes
would rejuvenate,
not decimate;
and I'd be generous
with my own
stinginess &
those who doubt miracles
will marvel at what
their lies reveal...

and I would tell you more
but today
is very demanding
on my time:
work
food
eat
sleep;
it feels,
suspiciously,
a lot like
yesterday,
but, graciously,
has nothing to do,
with tomorrow.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

THE QUANDARY


Her hands
were fat
with fears.
She dripped
neurosis.
I licked
her droppings.
What else
was I
to do?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

Monday, November 2, 2015

TASTES & TEXTURES


Courvoisier & coffee, black,
she said to the waiter.
I'll have the same,
I said without looking at him.
She was older than me
& more schooled
in all the ways
of the night.

We were waiting,
as all new lovers do,
for our molecules
of passion to run
head long into
each other.

The Vanguard
was low lit,
& lazy,
allowing people
to pray
to a god
of their own
choosing; I choose
touch
& placed my hand
inside her skirt's fold:
Nylon shivered
against my fingers.

She poured her cognac
into her coffee & took
my cigarette from me.
Smoke swirled into the lights.

Sonny stood before us, alone,
his huge gold tenor hanging
from his neck.
"Where or When" braced
the room
and I,
& everyone else,
stopped
breathing.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015