Saturday, December 31, 2016

2017 NEEDN'T HURRY ON MY ACCOUNT


Soon enough
I'll be shrunken
& bloodless...
or ash--
if I get lucky.
Better people than I
have made the journey.
I'm Ozymandias's
orphaned son
up to my balls
in sand: blank,
pitiless, lost
as I make my way
to the Bronx today
for a workshop
for jailbirds.

But at the stroke
of midnight
the raven will flutter
off Edgar's shoulder;
virginities will fall;
some will bleed,
others have bled,
amateurs will vomit
amid the horns, the revelers
the merry-makers; empires
will give themselves over
to shadows; girls will weep
& boys will whoop
their manhood to fathers
who are no longer there,
who followed their inner defaults:
money or fame or power.

And I'll be watching
it all play out.
I'll be with Ralph
& Alice & Norton & Trixie
in a Brooklyn tenement
in Bensonhurst.
Time does not age.
It clicks
endlessly.
Might as well
have a laugh.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Tuesday, December 27, 2016

DRAGGING OUR FUTURES


through our pasts;
all the silt the dirt the mud
staining a whiteness lost
to memory
is not lost
for long:
the images the music the maybes
are on a loop
and what happens next
is filtered through
your own special
sieve--
much like the days
when you had to strain
marijuana: a clump of shit
into a strainer
and rub
leaving the stems & seeds
while the sticky leaf
fluttered to a newspaper page
on your lap.
You began to gauge the high
by how it smelled
how it looked
but didn't really know
nothing
until you lit the shit
and smoked it:
got a lung full,
held it,
nursed it,
let it out,
and waited.

2017 scares me,
but I gotta
roll it up
and wait.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Sunday, December 25, 2016

CHRISTMAS, 2016


There's a density
of spirits
in the spaces
between bodies.
A hand comes at me
across the table;
I don't know
whose it is,
but I take it.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Saturday, December 24, 2016

CHRIST IN THE WINGS PREPARING FOR HIS ENTRANCE


ACT 1

SCENE 1:

A cold rain
is falling.

He's pacing
back & forth,
muttering
to himself.

If being born
is worth it,
tell him
to dress warm
and not to forget
to take his umbrella.
We know
how easily
He catches cold.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Friday, December 23, 2016

ROMANCE


To spend Christmas Eve
at Nathan's
in Coney Island
eating a hot dog,
while the rain
whips up mischief
& magic
is about as romantic
as it gets.

It will be an empty
shelter for a few
figures huddled
in an embrace
of whispers,
mustard biting
their lips, ketchup
staining their french fried fingers.

A clatter
of trains
at the end
of their lines
huffing
into terminals
as useless as prayers
offered up to love
proffered for the sea
slapping against the darkness
a few steps from civilization.

I will have worked
a half day, trying
to unlock the gates
swinging against the souls
smashed against odds
they inherited. I've come
from the same asylum
and wrap myself in our disease.

Another frank? I ask.
My hands grip a bill
& I fish it out.
We are a long way from heaven,
but a very long way from hell.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Sunday, December 18, 2016

VD ENTERPRISES


I don't mind
that Vladimir
& Donald divvy up
the world
as if they were cutting
into a ripe cunt begging
for their mouths;
I don't mind
that Stalingrad
& Gettysburg
& millions
of dead stumps
sticking in
the flushed earth
are fronts
for dick-waving
& flag fawning.
I don't even mind
that their walnuts
are patted with powders
as they suckle
from enormous breasts
through endless nights.

No, I don't mind.

What I do mind
is that neither one
of those motherfuckers
have started
a poetry magazine.
I, too, have
priorities.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Saturday, December 17, 2016

A CHRISTMAS ADMONITION


Waking up
from the deep
recesses
of sleep,
merciful sleep,
only to find
the poisoned presence
of the person
you fucked
the night before
is the mind's horror
of Christmas' past.
We would be wise
to remember
the stove;
the stove
is still hot,
politics
is still
a whore's game
and nothing changes
except
the will
to change.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Sunday, December 11, 2016

MY GIRLFRIEND SAYS


I talk too much;
I give away
too many secrets.
They're just words,
I say; no one
gives much of a shit
one way or another.
Bullshit, she says,
if you get a once in a blue moon hardon
Russia knows, Spain knows,
the fucking Ukraine knows,
and God forbid if I ask you
to eat my pussy, well,
the whole goddamn world has to know
how good you are to me!
But baby, that's what a poet does:
Inspire.
O, shut the fuck up
and get down there.

You never argue
with a woman
gone mad
with desire.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Saturday, December 10, 2016

SHOOTING DOPE ON CHRISTMAS EVE


was so romantic
back in the day;
even the dealers
were especially nice
& generous: the bags
were fatter
& stronger
as if baby Jesus
was in the teaspoon.

The year was 1969
and I was a poet,
a philosopher,
a rogue, a
bullshit artist.
My courage
lasted til the veil
lifted every four hours
or so. By that time
we were sleeping: she
all soft and soapy;
me somewhere else
buying time
between rounds.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Thursday, December 8, 2016

TAKING YOUR TEMPERATURE


"ABOVE ALL, AVOID FALSEHOOD, EVERY KIND OF FALSEHOOD, ESPECIALLY FALSEHOOD TO YOURSELF, WATCH OVER YOUR OWN DECEITFULNESS AND LOOK INTO IT EVERY HOUR, EVERY MINUTE."
--Dostoyevsky

Fyodor!
What a pain in the ass you are!
Walking around with a rectal thermometer
between the cheeks
and sniffing it
every few seconds! Christ!
Ain't there any other way???

Sorry, nyet.

Shit, you're sorry. I'm sorry and
I gotta find a drugstore that's open.

Take your time. Take your time.
Not too many have ever been sold.
Not very many want to smell their smell
or
are even able to. (And don't forget
the Vaseline--treat yourself
kindly).

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Monday, December 5, 2016

INTERVIEWING THE DEAD


Were you happy?
Happy with the way
you exited?
Did you bow?
Was it clean
or messy?
Were there bells and rings and beeps aplenty? Did you eat forbidden fruit? Did you fish in streams of Goldenrod? And safety? Were you cuffed and led to a hangman's noose or was it coaxed into a vein better than a 100 proof? Were there memories of love gone wrong or gone right into love gone wrong or were you loveless and alone as when you greeted the world as naked and stupid and numb with fright as you were descending the stair as you were thrashing about and pulling your hair and trying to come to grips with the air?

Write.

Tell me
how you wish
to go.

I'll do my best.

No promises though.

The line forms
to the right.

Take
a number.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Friday, December 2, 2016

I WISH I WOULD DIE


in a car
cruising
at sixty
or seventy
on a perfectly fine
autumn day
smoking a Lucky
and drifting
just drifting
next to a body
of water
moody
& full
of swells
& lulls
listening
to Sonny's Moritat
and wondering
what's next
on the playlist.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Thursday, December 1, 2016

THERE MUST BE LIFE


on some other fucking planet;
there must be some chick
who doesn't know me or
doesn't know my shit or
doesn't speak english
and doesn't give a damn
about Christmas
or New Years
and who gives
less of a fuck
about age
or infirmities
or gallantry
(whatever the fuck that means)
or has beetle-like opinions
gleaned from girlfriends
worse off than her
or relatives worse off than them
or children (real
or imagined).

I gotta get with Kepler
and a telescope
and make this happen
while things are still possible,
while I'm still possible
before I grow
into a complete asshole
while a tit like crab
crawls towards me
and the game
works on.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

I DROP WORDS


like breadcrumbs
so others
can find their way
to my home and I
can find my way
back.
It is a two-way
highway
of neurosis
on a one way
blacktop.

Men
are so obvious,
needy
& weak;
women
so devious,
cunning
& cruel.

Woods
emit light
from the center
of a sorcerer.
The evil parent
has been killed;
the house licked
clean. Bite marks
lace veins
in the finest filigree.
Memory
is the killer.

I no longer write
from instinct
but intention.
You've captured
me and we both
remain lost.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Sunday, November 27, 2016

MAYBE A PORK CHOP TONIGHT


if I get really frisky
and decide to cook?
Some rice
black beans
apple and hot sauce
too. Blessedly
I'll be alone.
I'll curse that
too. You can't win
with me.
I never could and
you can't either.

What's for
dessert?

Norman Savage
Bronx, NY 2016

Saturday, November 26, 2016

STAYING FUCKED


Cinderella has swollen feet.
She slouches
next to me
waiting
for her corns
& callous'
& bunions
to be cut
or dug out.
A frog's tongue
whispers
in her ear.
Her prince
dines on Mulligan Stew
on Macdougal Street
readying himself for
his evening's grate.
Buses & trains
are listless. Smoke
snakes from sewers. Cabs
poke their yellow noses
through steam.
I've waited in the rain
for Isadora Duncan
to dance on useless ankles
but tickets
are scarce.
Graves litter
a wormless earth.

My girl arrived.
She will save
her complaints
for Sunday.
We will have
our small tortures
at the right moment.
The night
is within reach
& hope
is stupid.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Thursday, November 24, 2016

EVEN ME, A MOST UNGRATEFUL KNUCKLE-DRAGGER, WOULD GIVE THANKS


if it were quick--
like turning off
a light switch.
I don't like to wait.
And I don't like mess.
I would give
three or four years
of my time here
for that.
(Like anything else
it's negotiable...

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

BEFORE THERE WAS SORROW

For Diane

there was only
The Bible
and prediction.
Before love
like a sugar glass
shattered & pooled
like the ripples
of an illusion
there was only
an oral tale
told by a blind oracle.

I was living,
they told me,
in high cotton:
59th & CPS.
A diploma
in one hand,
a syringe
in the other.
And you,
my dear,
was the price
of admission.

It will be nice
to see you again
even though
we can't touch
through veils
of history.
It's enough
to remember
the shadows
your body left
& the strong coffee
burning my tongue
in the morning.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Monday, November 21, 2016

LIKE A FART IN A BLIZZARD


is about
how noticeable
we are.
Poof.
Gone.
Hardly
a stink.
And that's a good thing.
So much noise.
So many open mouths.
So much dross.

I am having
franks & beans
for dinner.
Thick pork and nitrate lined dogs
& honey laden thick syrup baked beans.
I will not go out
without a fight.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

WORKING OUT THE MATH


A hundred,
she said.
I had
a fifty.

Give an old man a break,
I said.
You don't look that old,
she replied.
Depends on the part,
I said.

How old?
Six nine.
That is old,
she said.
Wait,
it's comin for you, too.
I ain't makin thirty.
You'll make it...
or maybe get lucky.

You sound like my father--
75, but that's it.

C'mon, I said,
I need to get away; escape
for ten or fifteen minutes.


OK fifty for fifteen;
if nothin's happenin
you use your hand.

I'll say a prayer.

Say two.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Saturday, November 12, 2016

THE BEST LOVERS


are a shade short
of brilliant,
deeply disturbed.
somewhat &
sometimes
unhinged,
swinging
like a handkerchief
in the wind.
They have creases
& scars despite
their age
are nutty & flakey
and twist your words
on themselves
& imprison you
gladly
& madly
beyond your meager
understanding.
They make
unscheduled stops
in your heart.
They move
on white lines
in black streets
the asphalt hot
& sticky from
their all day heat
inside your head.
What magic
they make.
Don't die
before finding one.
Go out now
make yourself
miserable.
You'll thank me
later.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Friday, November 11, 2016

ASSHOLES & OPINIONS


are man's common denominator--
that's all we have:
song & dance men
who are Nobel Laureates,
bus drivers & whores,
professors
of communication,
bricklayers, privates
& generals,
the Dalai Lama & The Pope,
pimps and the talking heads
on endless TV shows throwing-up
opinions & angles & breakdowns
& break-ups & stats that stink
like frog farts and fermented
bromides. Our hearts are coal mines
of sin.
We knew Hillary
was wrong, full of shit;
we knew she just mouthed the words
of the socialist Jew...and we let her.
We knew Donald
was an anti-semitic racist cocksucker
who's nature was to gyp & lie & destroy
every tit he couldn't suck, but at least
he wasn't her--that was our out pitch.

We knew that it was not possible
that Rachel & Lawrence & the Chris'
had never heard the word "pussy" before.
We knew that their surety spelled doom.
We knew that the locker room
was our bedroom
and boardroom.
We knew that artists
and entertainers
and agents
and the corner magicians
are either sucking your blood
or sucking your cock.
Their purity,
their sanctimoniousness
made me retch.
We know doctors
who shouldn't be practicing,
lawyers who should be locked-up,
teachers who should be strung-up
yet do nothing, say nothing.

Poor people
have always been fucked.
But this time their assholes leaked opinions
and it cost them
nothing.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Monday, November 7, 2016

WE WAZ ROBBED


Your parents robbed ya;
your teachers robbed ya;
God robbed ya;
you bounced
against walls,
slid down pipes;
tied to hissing radiators;
you ate
empty plates;
your stomach filled
with air; your heart swelled
with dread;
they diddled your privates;
told you about good boys
& good girls & chugged
a fifth
or fucked
a neighbor
or gave you a wafer
& wine breathed hope
of a heaven
so far from your daily hell
it might as well have been
a Saturday cartoon.

And then a warning
not to tell
even yourself
because all you do
is lie anyway.
Now
go out
& play.

I will vote
tomorrow
for any party
I'm not
invited
to
be
in.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Saturday, November 5, 2016

JUST SO MUCH GOD YOU CAN GET NEXT TO


Maria was
a Seven Day Adventist
and gorgeous.
A priest
would have eaten
a stained glass window
to get next to her.
I, on the other hand,
was right next to her.
We sat asshole to elbow
in a teeny-tiny office
in a drug rehab joint
in Williamsburg Brooklyn
over forty years ago.
There were three of us
in there, all ex-junkies; the other chick
helped Carlos, the boss reformed junkie
do everything
he couldn't
or didn't want to do.
Williamsburg was still a slum
before the hipsters
destroyed it. Roosters
cock-a-doodle-do'd
in the early morning
waiting to fight
or be cooked.
And everybody
wanted me to fuck Maria,
except Maria.
She wanted me to pray,
eat better
and read
The Watchtower.
Oh yeah, and repent.
I could do every one of those things
except eat better--a man
has his limits.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

IT GOT LATE EARLY


It could have been
the noise
from their fights
for cheap power
or my panic
of drowning
in my own fears?
Maybe
it was shoddy
craftsmanship...
you know,
poor wiring,
from the manufacturer,
but whatever
it was
a part
of me
went dark
early on
and no matter
what I've done
or tried to do
that light
has not even
flickered.
The switch
has simply
been out
of reach
since.
And now
I'm tired,
too tired,
to even
look.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Sunday, October 30, 2016

GETTING A DAY'S PARDON


In the forties
last week; colder times
are ahead
but not today:
seventy-five
& climbing
as if God
granted you
a conjugal visit
with his sun.
(He be doin
some mad
pimpin.)

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Saturday, October 29, 2016

I'VE BEEN LOVED


by women past
& present
many years older
or younger who
I love
when not too much
in love
with myself.
In each affair
I've given
everything
I couldn't
hold back.
Women who've been
to finishing schools
& rouged their nipples
& dressed before bed
in French silk taffeta,
and those who've spent
endless nights on open grates
on east village sidewalks
and brought weapons
wrapped with sex
& mindfulness
into our cradle.
They have ways
about them;
ways of doing
& of being done;
they bleed
style. They have monstrous
needs; they drink their own milk.
They drip neurosis
freely to mouths greedy
& grateful.

One day the words
will have moved on
to greener pastures--
then it will be over
for me
but not yet.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Thursday, October 27, 2016

MY KIND OF GAL


You're a willful little girl
who'll pretend
to eat all her food,
every last bit of it,
but that the toilet bowl
will swallow
sometime later;
you'll buy winning tickets,
but never cash them;
you'll wear disappointment
like a birthright
next to a trampled heart.
You'll get in front
of retrospect
and won't look
while crossing.
You don't believe
in God,
but wonder
if he's angry
at you.
You've predicted
your prophecy
and are determined
to get to where
you're unsure
of going.
You've set up
a lingerie shop
in the south Bronx
selling Parisian silk
to old whores
and do not care
how much cash you keep
on hand.
You are hellbent
and driven
and hand the keys over
to nobody.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

AN OPEN SECRET


The Chinaman
ironing shirts
knows this;
the matador
poised on his toes ready
to thrust
knows this;
the coke smuggling wetback
knows this;
the milkman
and gravedigger
the lancelot and stevedore
the film idol
and long distance trucker
and FBI tracker
and Appalachian miner
and proctologist
know this: Nothing
is worse
than fighting
with your woman
on Sunday night.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

SHE LOVED


shooting dope
and eating
Devil Dogs
and digging
White Light/White Heat.
She was
a handful.
She'd touch
D'Lugoff's balls
as he let us in
on Latin Night
Mondays at The Village Gate;
and placed a rose
on Simone's piano
because she wanted to.
She made her fix
by hustling
as a nude model
at SVA
but wouldn't fuck
the professor painter
of the class
no matter his name
or his threats.
Her name was Barbara
and she lived
on Pineapple Street
in Brooklyn Heights
and she died
before I could tell her
all she did for me.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Sunday, October 23, 2016

A HARD KNOT


of no

lives

inside me.

It claimed

this space

before yes

arrived.

Its flag

is black.

It has not

recognized

surrender.

It only weeps

for strangers

it has no chance

of ever knowing.

It stays,

like these letters,

between heartbeats

and consequence.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Friday, October 21, 2016

A PETRI DISH OF MURMURED MADNESS


Eye
droppers
& dollar collars.
Rubber
nipples.
Book matches
twined
& humping
each to each.
Spikes
dull
rusty
blood caked,
but O
so necessary.
Black carbon
underbellies
of spoons.
White ladies.
Dope sick.
A warm November
evening, '69.

Let's dance.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Thursday, October 20, 2016

APES, STILL--POST DEBATE POST MORTUM


How far
from the caves
& trees & forests
that history swings through;
how far
from the single cells
of slavery
& perfunctionary fucking
have we traveled
to get to
last night?

The desert's lion's head
& sand beasts,
Constantinople & catastrophes
hold little sway
over inherent cruelties
& madmen.

Once upon a time
we were apes
with clubs...now
nuclear weapons.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Saturday, October 15, 2016

ONE FOR PUMA PERL


I will try
to turn
a few more
lights on
& not sit
& stew
in so much
darkness.
It gets
so comfortable
in the asshole
of self
that you can't smell
your own shit--
& even if you do
you kinda like it
until an old friend
you respect
tugs on your jacket:
hey, it stinks
in here;
light a match
willya?

Onward.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Friday, October 14, 2016

CUTTING THROUGH THE FOG


I can get
pretty lost
with only myself
for company.
My secrets need
distractions.
Recently
I've had time
to go insane.
Getting there
has been fun.
Remaining there
has been hell.
Give me
your number.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

ON A NYC STOOP ON THIS DAY OF ATONEMENT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csE28cJxxNE
For Samira

Had we met
forty years ago
we'd have had
a grand time
setting each other
on fire.
It would have been lovely
to be both ignitor
& charred; pyromaniacs
of the soul; LaVern Baker's
Angel Heart.

Your eyes belied
the lust your body struggles
to contain. Brown & burning
they see too much & try
to offer so little, but
they fail to protect
or to serve you well.

We're trapped
in our own time
& by our own sense
of morality
while cowboys ride
faraway fences
& Aretha Franklin
moans in the dark.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Monday, October 10, 2016

BEING ALIVE


at sixty-nine
makes as much sense
as a deaf & dumb
ventriloquist,
a fountain hidden
in a urinal,
a virgin
giving her lover
skid chains;
a circus
of syringes,
earthworms
who get up
& beg; waves
cresting beneath
the skin.

Sense
& nonsense,
everything
& nothing.
I've been
a heedless
& sometimes headless
man, attuned to only
my heart's trumpet.

Like tonight:
a good-natured whore
helped me bridge
consciousness.
She promoted this semicolon
of calm
that allowed this poem
to write itself
before I test my blood
& take a shot for Hagan-Daz.

Seventy awaits.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Sunday, October 9, 2016

CLOSE YOUR EYES AND FANTASIZE A DIFFERENT KIND OF PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE


De Palma
in his glory:
Cassavetes combusting,
Spacek going fucking crazy.
My booming generation:
mirrors & illusions
naked and puffed up
imploding, gasping & holding on
for dear life.
Don't waste your piss,
let them burn.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Saturday, October 8, 2016

NYC WOMEN ARE CUT


by mongrel tailors
& stitched into a
forgiving city
fabric. They have
a hunting eye,
a disinterested sheath.
Their pubic hair stronger
than the cables that hold
up The Brooklyn Bridge.
Paris has it,
Rome has it,
in parts, we
have gowns & red canvas
hightops, syncopation
& sycophants, red hair,
and green hair, and purple,
and blue; no hair & bristles;
a Gershwin sycophants,
a black and white romance
next to a Sid & Nancy
blood splotched Chelsea bed.
Donegal tweeds & Irish weaves,
Jewish prayers & Baptist hollers,
lipstick and scars and ankles
twisting inside knee socks
of high school starlets;
they marry Freud & Lacan,
fashion & tease into passion
& play.
This goddamn be-bop do-wop city
birthed The Drifters & The Voice,
brought Ginsberg into Whitman's grave, gave Dylan
refuge, laid down the line for Crane,
tripped Pollock into paint, bought Dizzy a horn,
gave every faggot with rhythm and style and form
a form to fit it around and places to drink & find release,
gave black folks a country within a country and fomented alchemy secretive;
this city drips into you;
this city lets you be beautiful and brilliant and, finally, insecure.
This is Robert Johnson's crossroads;
this is where the devil makes deals;
this is the old Murderer's Row;
these are the skyscrapers taking your eyes off the streets;
this is danger,
this is delicious;
there is the hoop
and the ball
does not lie.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Sunday, October 2, 2016

SAW ARBUS

For A's POV:

yesterday;
she was hanging
my spine
on a hook.
That was after
I had an espresso
with Frank
who had to split
for the Hampton Jitney
to meet an old friend,
(he told me),
that he was trying
to pawn-off
on someone
who never met him.
Such fuss.
A mess,
he said.
I just wanted
to get away
from Diane
who kept sliding
her hands
up & down
a mirror
that looked dead
in a fast approaching
storm whipping around
the beach almost
deserted almost
habitable.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Thursday, September 29, 2016

HANDS-UP, MOTHERFUCKER!


I was in
deep shit.
Walled
in the placenta
of doom.
Just whispers
carried
by a tube.
No crazed Latinos
signing on the sides
of trains. No one
protesting. This
was God's turf,
His zip code.
Her cord
kept me
stoned
enough
while I heard
her fight
with a cock
& all her other
demons
as she schitzed along
on her busted wires--

--until those Klieg lights
& Arctic cold fucked me
beyond belief. I stood
naked in that prison yard
of cold steel instruments
& rubber gloves
& wondered: where
did the time go & why
it didn't take me
with it? How blood reasons
before the brain computes
and how
I was really
nowhere.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Saturday, September 24, 2016

TAKE HOME


For some
its cardboard containers
of Chinese food.
For others
it's homework.
And then
there are those
who gently put
320 mg of meth
in the icebox.
But for all
there's the devil
in the middle:
do I eat,
do I do,
do I imbibe?
Hear it
whisper.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

THE MAGICIAN

For A...


I defy
the eye
to see
it. That's
how quickly
I change.
You might
suspect
a sleight
of hand.
But you'd still lose
your money or
your heart...usually
both.
Leave them both
at the door
before
you enter.

(I've just gained
your trust.)

Make yourself
at home,
please.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Monday, September 12, 2016

TOUGH DAY


yesterday
for all of us.
My ex-wife's
Nagasaki shadow
stuck to the wall
of my heart
remembering the heat
from an early morning
pumpkin colored blast
to the early evening's ash
settling over us
and the rest of us
mortals.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Friday, September 9, 2016

IN THE PRIVACY


of my apartment
I find myself
weeping a lot.
I hear about veterans
committing suicide
for stuff their bloated
bellies can't keep down;
I see dogs abandoned
and caged and shivering
and naked beyond their understanding;
I see mothers weeping
from a sidewalk ricochet;
I watch a foreign paraplegic
grasp a diploma and future
between two of her working fingers;
I read a young woman's grasp
of a tilting and incomprehensible world.

I've been a defensive man.
Quick to anger
& quicker to judge.
I've tried to play
it safe and found
no safety in that.
There is some kind of muscle
memory of heroism; maybe
I'm Greek and have absorbed
some ancient blood myths.
I don't know.
But the world has bloomed
despite thoughts of cruelty.
I've seen shapes
seemingly unimpressive
impress most of all.
I'm an old dog
learning how
to become
young.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Thursday, September 8, 2016

SEMICOLONS


are the mind's hinge,
a swinging door
always oiled,
they allow memories
to pool, a synaptic
broker between
Amy's ass
& cold Jello,
a night spent
searching
for a fix
and fixing
a flat
on a Montana highway
under a hot unforgiving sun.
An inner loop
that spoons against
what was flesh
or taste or smell or touch,
a sweet nipple's sip
of scotch and a drunken stroll
home, a different home,
than what was home
a moment ago.

It's a messy detachment
and a cool be-bop prose.
It hedges your reckless bet
knowing the dealer cheats.
It's her thigh
and her leg, her laugh
above her heart, her mind
fondling her breasts
when I stole glances
between boardwalk slats
of pink panties
and black curly hairs
curling around lace
before I called an eight ball
in the side pocket.

It's reading aloud
to hundreds while fearful
of a question, of wasted
decisions and hours shit out
like so much glad handing
to time's curse. Distance
is a lie to manage movement.
Each moment brings
its own semicolon.
When in doubt
you should use one. Welcome
home.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Wednesday, September 7, 2016

I USED TO HIDE


Ian Fleming
and Mickey Spillane
against the spine
of whatever text
they had us read from
in my high school classes.
I liked Fleming's sophistication
and Spillane's guts in their
Bond & Hammer personas.
You could call me bipolar now,
or just fucked-up then.
But however the marriage worked
it allowed me to cop uptown dope
and fuck downtown dowagers.

I like polarities
and extremities of weather;
I like black & blue blues
& Verdi Requiems.
It has never endeared me
to the family of girls,
who eyed me
with suspicion--justified,
I might add--
or the supervisors in all the jobs
I've had--which was the only thing
I earned. I've had little patience
with the days and had to sit still
over nights without end. I bitched
and complained and never apologized.

I still appreciate how Lawrence
can rip off a piece of ass
with class and those pulp dimes
who ejaculate before they unzip
themselves. Which way
do you prefer?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Thursday, September 1, 2016

THERE WAS THIS GIRL


in high school
I lusted for.
It was not desire,
but need. But she
was tangled up
with a moron.
You can argue
against anything
except stupidity.

That next summer
things had changed:
her mom was fucking
a Communist neighbor
and she had abandoned Russian
for an Art major in college;
she knew what lies were
and how to create some
of her own; and I got smart
in the cosmology of drugs
and bullshit. She'd also quit
the moron and watched
how her body leaned in
to itself. Her eyes
were still cat's green.

We read Ramparts
& Ginsberg, sung Dylan
& Motown, smoked pot
& fucked whenever
& wherever we could
& survived some of the onslaught.
But not all of it;
she's dead forty-five years now
& I'm still going--not as strong
but still going. Our pain,
inviolate & absolute, created
a union having little to do
with love as we imagined love
to be, but each time I think of her
it's different--and that's
a real poem.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

THE ROOFTOPS


have blisters,
fever blisters,
from the fish bowl's cauldrons
beneath their skin.
Conflict
is the pond scum
we live in.
It's the thing
that keeps us
treading water.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016


Monday, August 29, 2016

2 SHIT SANDWICHES:


One,
full of childish morbidities;
the other,
an old shrew
full of meanness and greed;
one born of bigotry
& brownshirts;
the other raised
in Goldwater's piss;
one's dick
a wrinkled spigot;
the other's cunt
a Sahara of madness.

Go ahead,
take a bite.
I dare you.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Friday, August 26, 2016

RUNNING ON EMPTY

For A...
http://bit.ly/2bU0bZ9

Chances are
if you're reading this
you've eaten today,
or will tonight;
you have a roof
over your head;
you can fuck
or be fucked
by someone
of your own
choosing;
you can,
at least,
have a hand
to hold;
you have ways
to go.
Most of those
who I'm supposed to counsel,
who I'm supposed to know
more about living than they do,
have had none of this
and even the hobo bed
they sleep in
tonight
will be fraught
with an evanescent
darkness.
Some wait
for me
to arrive
in the morning,
believing
I have answers or,
at least,
another way
to go,
to get them through
another day;
addicts,
myself included,
have always been
magical thinkers.

But today,
I'm fresh out
of words,
worn thin
from my own
battles
with my own
demons
who keep finding
my new cracks
in old cracks
to slither & slide
through and take possession
of flimsy pretensions.

I would think
it would change:
I'm older;
seemingly
at peace
with this carnival
of Hell that excited me so.
But I'd be wrong
to think that.
I could find fault
with Heaven
not being Heavenly enough.

But tomorrow
I'll go to Chinatown
with a woman
who likes spice.
She knew Arbus
and listened
to Ornette.
She'll sleep over
& leave when I leave
for work Sunday morning.
I'll play Nico for her
& she'll know that too.
Good things
are sometimes
hard to take,
but I'll live.
Yes,
I will.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Thursday, August 25, 2016

SO NICE OF YOU

For A...


to drop by
& be victimized;
to let me
have my way;
to call
the shots.
We know,
of course,
the gun
belongs
to you.
And I
thank you
for
letting me
hold it
& hold on
& sometimes
borrow it.
Yes,
here it is
back--
handle first.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

ALWAYS ON


guard.
Studied.
Composed.
Projecting
something
natural,
unforced,
cool.
Never
at ease.
Watched.
Judged.
Criticized.
Commented on.
Playing
to an audience
somewhere
out there
outside,
not
necessarily
alive
either.

Waiting
for the lights
to dim
if not
go out.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Sunday, August 21, 2016

YOU SHOULDN'T DO THAT

For A...


to me
on Skype--
or in person
for that matter
--without telling me
to have the paddles
at the ready.
You know
I'm old
& easily
aroused.

Same time
tomorrow?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Thursday, August 18, 2016

CONEY ISLAND BABY

This poem is A's...

"If they had no madness in them, they were useless; genius doesn't speak with the limited tongue of sense."
--C.E. Morgan

A nitrous oxide summer.
Slick & honeyed mouths
of cotton candy, girl pink
& fushcia, yellows/blues/reds,
candy apples caramel thick
on gooey sticks; pavement
suction cupping sneakers;
a hiss of franks
charring & popping juices;
sweet salt twisting
nipples & noses.
Rats, in the moist sand,
sticking their whiskers
into bags of Nathan's fries.

I was traveling
into a dark wood,
around the arms
of sailors
& their girls,
crisscrossing a huckster's moan
inviting bravery born
in a man's bone
& the pitch of nickels & quarters--
an alchemist's delight
in life's chances
& chances taken--
hyped-up & erect
against the steely teeth
of zippers.

Night is not dark,
but forgiving.
Boardwalks are lenient.
Songs are simple
laments of longing.
Each wave,
a sensation
brokered
by a semicolon.
I was lost
& still am.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

A LOVE POEM TO C.E. MORGAN


You're playing ping-pong
with my innards; stirring
the black abyss
between dreams.
How do you know
so much
about me,
and my place
astride the grave?
Ssh,
don't tell me, don't
kill it. Not now,
wait
'til I finish.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Saturday, August 6, 2016

THESE DAYS


have been hard;
I've not felt
the poem
sexy,
or funny,
or biting;
I've not felt
much
of anything
except the slow
leak
of a tire
going bald
& traction-less.
I've not had
reason
to write
you
or anyone else
in this conversation
of ghosts.
Your eight hours
of oceans
& mountains
are too unfathomable
for me
to fathom
a requisite closeness
no matter
how many missives
you've sent.
There are still times
where the only thing
that will do
is touch
& even touch
has its own
danger.

But tonight
there was a picture
with a c'mere look
and a slap
against my
holding fast
to misery.
It made my fingers
find a way.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

MY BROTHER


is sick.
His life
is littered
with addiction
like a NYC subway
is blanketed with disease.
My family tree
has syringes
hanging off the branches.
And each branch
has fucked each other
royally: absence, suffocation,
adultery, lies, betrayals, coke,
weed, booze, pills, and
that grandmaster,
heroin. Arms shot,
noses gone, lungs coal mined,
jobs destroyed, homes foreclosed,
cars repossessed, heirlooms pawned.
Few
have made it out
at any age,
but I did.
I got lucky.
After 50 years
of trying to fill
an inside straight,
I changed the game.
I found fear,
healthy fear.
I did not want
to die. Not
at 52, not
like this;
not then;
not now
at 68.

My brother
is stuck
in an addict's nightmare:
too easy to cop,
too hard to refuse.
His brain
is turning
to mush.
But after four years
I've persuaded him
to go into a program.
In all probability
it won't work,
but there's a shot
it will. If you're willing
to change the hand
& gamble in a game
where you don't know
the rules you might
get lucky
too.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Friday, July 29, 2016

EVERY NIGHT IS DOPE NIGHT


Edgar waits
pen in hand
for his little girls
to visit
bringing
China White.
He sits
next to
a raven colored
sax player
who's trying
not to vomit.

He scribbles
between the cramps.
They hope
they trickle in
before the second set.
Everything's green
in this bucket
of blood
saloon.

Outside
it's snowing.
A white carpet
lays between
uptown &
downtown
on the south side
of heaven,
one stop
from Hell.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Thursday, July 28, 2016

MOTHS & FLAMES

http://bit.ly/1NZ3eMZ

My in-box
is a tinderbox
of maybes.
And I come
from a long line
of seekers:
Catullus & Shelley
& Byron & all those
rowboat suicides
have made my pebbled path
no easier to traverse,
but fun to follow.

Words have lit
the back alleys
of madness
& another has
found me
behind those
choreographed characters
at my age
now.

In this heat
we look toward
Christmas.
I'll begin
to prepare
my lair
now...

Jingle Bells.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

RUSSIAN PRELUDES & NOCTURNES



I found our grandeur
in a Karaoke bar
on the lower east side:
Putin was singing
Pussy Riot--
quite good actually
--while Trump
was taking a shave.
Wait til I finish,
Vladimir said,
then slit it.
(He was always
a cold
sonofabitch).

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Saturday, July 23, 2016

RUSSIANS


have guts:
they know
they're fucked
but they stay
Russian.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

FOR THE GODS' SAKE


stay a mystery.

Let me do
with you
what I want.

Keep
your secrets
& keep
your stains.

Keep
whatever is old
new, unknowable.

Once you tell me,
even in the bluest whispers,
it's twisted
by the very air
pushing against
our skin.
Instead,
I will watch
that which moves
without thought
or motive;
I will know you
by your absence.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Friday, July 22, 2016

THE DANGER ZONE

http://bit.ly/2a5CTRk

His blues still shouts blind
in this darkness we're in.
It's a piss-poor choice
to choose from and gleefully
lick our hands anyway.
Mussolini on the balcony
tossing bouquets of bombast
while the Wicked Witch tries
to sniff out infidelities
and infidels. Who could
blame her
for feeling entitled
after living with God's gift
to neurosis?
She can still hear
his honeyed voice
full of Hope
& bullshit say:
"Had a hard day,
need to shower."
And still she could smell
sex all over him.

Mussolini had Fred
& Roy Cohen to get him hard
& now he keeps his daughter
closer than his wife.
Something's up
with that
is something
he might say.
I'll just lie down
on the nearest couch
& wile away my days
waiting for the world
to whimper & sputter
& spill from the sounds
& the furies of
nothing.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

ISLAND HOPPING


I've sweated
& absorbed
hundreds of cultures
while your blood
courses with thousands.
My island
is steel.
Your land
is sunshine.
We shake
from the glint
of refraction.
The coronets
are filled
with blood;
the games
are yet
to begin.
Nature & man
are majestic
& depraved.
Mad desire
moves all.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Monday, July 18, 2016

MELANIA


loves me
she said,
but can't fuck
with her prenup.
That's OK
with me:
married women
are safer
married
(not to mention
richer).

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Sunday, July 17, 2016

TO MAURITIUS...WITH LOVE


The blues
will tell
you...rock
'n roll
rockers
& punks
& hip
hop
artists,
the mad
painters
and soon
to be mad
civilians;
they will
shout,
scream
stomp
& stroll
down the
avenues
of the
dead;
Madagascar
will moan
& Arkansas
will sway
to the harps wind;
glass will hide
underneath a dream
of white while horses
run away
over the hills;
a deep bone ache
abides like a good
slide guitar
in a whiskey walk...
There is no better love
than the one that's
lost and
you can appear
like magic;
I've made it easy
for you:
I'm listed.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Saturday, July 16, 2016

FUCK AN APPLE


I'd tell my students,
bring me some pot instead;
they were almost adults
& so better able
to handle
the truth.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Thursday, July 14, 2016

NOTHING MUCH HAS CHANGED...


except the gray hairs
around my balls &
the wrinkled spigot
that serves
as my dick.
But my brain
still gets as hard
as Chinese algebra.
And so I'm taken
by surprise
when folks my age
smile & say hello
as they pass me
reading or smoking
a cigarette or both
while I sit
on a stoop
in the shade
on a beautiful brownstone perch
in Greenwich Village.

The young ones
without a crease
or a care pass
as if I didn't exist...
& I don't...
for them.
Sometimes a "father thing"
glides by and I get a look
but little more.
But the old ones & I
exchange a smile, even banter
a bit--how's the book; it's hot;
nice weather; live here long--
small talk that connects us.
They think they have nothing to fear
and I don't try to dissuade them.
They are not in a rush,
but I am...I've always been
in a rush and more times
than not
have blown past the money.
Most feel no danger
coming off of me...I hope
they're wrong.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

MY FRIEND FROM MAURITIUS


is nameless,
faceless,
formless.
Just the way
I like em.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Saturday, July 9, 2016

DANCING WITH REPTILES


Some folks
I work with
can't take
too much
freedom; they chafe
& strain
at the bit
of choices:
what to eat?
what to watch?
where to go?, etc., etc.
How to make time
move is sometimes
a bitch; the streets
& institutions
will do that ta ya.
Easier to make death
stand still
& pay attention
to you
if you're helping
to make his job
easier. A heated grating
is home for a night,
a week,
a year; a garbage can
in The Port Authority
offers food, maybe
a cigarette
butt a few drags, a drug
relief. Survival
is one decision
at a time.

Belly-up...

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Friday, July 8, 2016

BORN WHITE


I was crazy
but never worried
about being stopped
or frisked or shot
dead by the boys
in blue when nuzzling
a girl at two or three
in the morning
or pretending
I was tough
with a Coney Island crew.
Even when
I was carrying
reefer or dope
on a black block
I was more afraid
of being ripped-off
then shot by a white cop, who,
was more afraid than I was.
I had ownership
of the country
& the world.
To me
it was a bad break
to be born black;
it allowed me
to steal
their music,
their colors,
their magic and
their pain. I took
what served me
with both hands
& gave them
lip service
or silence.
I did with them
only what I wanted,
which amounted to
a spectator sport.

Nakedness needs
to be bled; the cut
needs prayer.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Thursday, July 7, 2016

THE FULLER THE LIPS

http://bit.ly/29rfvM1

the more traps they set
or fall into; yours
is as ripe as a Georgia peach
in the fat heat of August.
My face still drips
with your juice; my hands
sticky as an ice cream cone
in the hands of a child
who does not know that time
exists.
God, like me
& your father,
is a fiendish
romantic, a comedic genius
falling all over ourselves
to get next to a chilly woman
who heats her burner
with a Memphis beat.

I don't mind your lying
as long as you're telling me your truth;
I don't mind the wind teaching a song
how to sing; I don't mind the distance
as long as you keep me near.
I open your secrets
with a carelessness
born of fever &
forgetfulness.

I touch all your places
that I remember. And
don't mind inventing
more lies
to fatten
in the sun.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

4th OF JULY, 2016 POSTMORTUM


I heard the rain fucking
with Macy's fireworks
on Manhattan's east side
last night, as my air-conditioner
whirred and whined. I had shut
the windows tight & locked the door,
but something is always trying
to get in to your safety
no matter how guarded you are.
That something is working
towards you without fear
or distractions.

I didn't feel bad
for those millions
standing asshole to elbow
waiting for the celebration
of a country that has lost
its way. Crowds
have always terrified me.

So much of the city
had abandoned me
and what was left
scanned the heavens.
The rain's rhythm
soothed me.
Then it was over:
loud booms to my east
lasting twenty minutes
or so. A few
lightening flashes.
A few o's & ah's & oh's
and then it was over.

I made it thru
another holiday,
another reason
to celebrate
an illusion.
I have plenty
left & tomorrow
is another day.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Monday, July 4, 2016

IF I GOT YOU


so wrong,
why
are you
right
here?

A mistake
of nature?
Hardly,
my dear;
rather
a melding
of illness'.
Call it
Mother
Nature
limiting
the destruction.

I kinda like that.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Sunday, July 3, 2016

A PROPITIOUS DAY


Blood moons
& high tides.

Gun shots
tomorrow.

Heart attacks
& marriage
21 & 22 years ago
respectively.

Today,
a Jewish gypsy
told my fortune
and made me feel guilty
about my future.

In celebration
I made out
this month's
checks:
I want to know
exactly
how free
I am.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Saturday, July 2, 2016

SOMEBODY FROM MAURITIUS


rang my bell
in the middle of the night
a hundred & twenty-one times,
but I was sleeping--
didn't hear a fucking thing
'til this morning,
when I saw someone
went fucking crazy
on my poetry blog.
I didn't know
where Mauritius is
until I Googled it:
Africa, fucking Africa,
very beautiful.
Who is it?
Male or female?
Female, I hope.
So much interest
should not go
unrewarded...
& had to stop
myself: Savage,
I said, take it
easy; you're a good writer,
but a fucking dreadful human.
It was then
I picked-up
this pen...
& there
you have it.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Friday, July 1, 2016

RESISTANCE


I've been trying
to write a poem
about the love
of my life
for days now.
The page,
my fingers,
my brain,
says: FUCK YOU.

(Hey,
that works;
that's
the poem...

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Thursday, June 30, 2016

AN OLD FASHIONED BARE KNUCKLES FISTFIGHT


with death
I've been having
from an early age.
I now look forward
to that minute's rest
between rounds.
He grins at me
& I grin back.
I know
he will take me
out
eventually
but not before
I bloody him some more.
Yes,
he will get me,
but when he does
there'll be much less
of me
to take.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

WEDNESDAY 5:13


Two women
walked by
on the sunny streets
of Greenwich Village
wearing nothing
but Saran Wrap.

One was tall
& blond,
humongous tits,
round ass,
hairy snatch;
the other was skinny,
red hair,
pencil eraser nipples
pointing straight out
from a flat chest,
shaved clean
around the cunt.
No signs,
no cameras,
no film crew,
no followers,
no nothin.

It was only a fat lazy Wednesday
and aside from TheEmpireStateBuildingWoolworthBuildingChryslerBuildingYankeeStadiumBronxZooBotanicalGardensDTrain ConeyIslandNathan'sJacksonPollockDeKooningCharlieParkerMilesDavisBillieHolidayGuggenheimMetWhitneyModernSlugsBlueNoteHalfNoteVanguardQTrain4,5,6TrainFifthAveBusMeatMarketHuntsPointFultonFishMarketChinatownKoreaTownLittleItalyBobDylan GinsbergKlineRothkoJonesBraszPumaPearl...and me...
it was what makes
this city great.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

COMING


into that last hour
of the week,
rounding third,
heading for home,
is a beautiful thing.
You've made it
thru another week
of danger
to yourself
& others.
You haven't gotten killed
or killed the others
that you wanted to;
you've accomplished shit--
good & bad
--without wounding
or getting wounded.
Life has taught
you nothing
except
survival
& that,
my friends,
is triumph
enough.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Sunday, June 26, 2016

YOU THINK IT'S EASY


waiting
on the muse?
Try it
sometime.
Ya sit, sit, sit...
& nothing. Fucking piss.
Not a goddamn thing
to get you hard.
Sit some more
waiting
for you to appear,
to give me
a reason
to go on--
a slim one,
I know,
but baby
these are some mean fucking times;
& ya take
what the dealer
deals. Then
you cheat,
steal, lie,
squeeze those cards
for all they're worth:
sometimes,
not much;
sometimes
a fortune.

I'll take
my chances
with you.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Thursday, June 23, 2016

HOW TO SHOOT YOURSELF IN THE FUCKIN HEAD


First:
Get a set of parents
who are out of their fucking minds.
Next:
Digest them
whole, absorb
their judgements:
you're shit,
the world is shit,
everything's shit.
Next:
Believe that.
Then:
Go out into the world.

Lock & Load.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

SAM

http://bit.ly/28Trzb6

You were three
and I was nearly sixteen.
You had yet to find
misery, and I had found
too much of it.
You would, shortly, catch-up.

Then, in Bed-Stuy,
I saw Sam
live. My old man
took me. Lucky,
for me, he was
a black Jew
for his time.
Sam defined
my pain; he helped
get to my bones.

I've tried
to get to
yours.

I'm still
trying.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

TENDING MY GARDEN


on my little patch
of Hell:
A memorial
this morning
for Mr. Bamberg
who spent 15 years
in Green Haven
on a 25 to Life bid
lived for 6 months
with us
before pancreatic cancer
did what the streets couldn't:
take him out.
The staff
& his cousin was there.
It seems Mr. Bamberg
was real pleasant
to work with & his nephew
claimed he taught him
everything his dead parents couldn't:
except how to get out of his own zip code.
And then there were our tenants
who came our of their caves
for the free cake & coffee.

Then there are the live ones:

Ronny's on a cocaine binge;
his two hands as big as pillows
from I.V.ing his veins
and missing;
Little Paulie has an abscess
from shooting dope into dead highways;
Bent Over Paulie
who has a hump back
from scoliosis
& great nutrition, split
from his hospital bed
& was last seen hustling
roses down the avenue
of the dead
on 42 do-wop street; Eva
was issued a bench warrant;
& Marty began a gig--
his first one in ten years
since his 7 year bid
in Dannemora
and looked like a kid
when he came back
to tell me.
Some
might find that depressing.
Too bad
for them. They've never
missed a meal
or slept on a grate;
they never walked
down a street
that wasn't lit
for them.
But I've got
an easy two days
off that I'm going
to enjoy. Praise
the Lord.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Monday, June 20, 2016

I WANT A LITTLE SUGAR

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbKlvWvpD2g

Don't you?
A little rush?
Make you woozy,
it will,
make you
thrash your head,
side to side,
your body shimmy
like fresh made jello,
feel the wetness slide
within and outside you.
C'mon darlin,
ya can leave
your insulin
home; I got plenty
and besides:
finally we'll be
someplace where
we're not.
Slide it
over.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

URBAN LOVE


I'll take
your silence
as a "yes,
go on (please)
go on."
Watch
while I take
everything
from you;
it's a stick-up
without a gun.

Don't move.
Put your hands
down & your arms
around me.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Saturday, June 18, 2016

BETTY, MY DEAR


You must tell me
if you really want me
to stop;
if it hurts
too much;
if you want
a tourniquet applied
where a torrent of words flow;
if you want to save
our minds
or our hearts?

The beasts
are in the
forests where
the prisoners
are hunted.
I would give them quarter
if I had change
of a dollar.

Instead,
I offer you safety
nestled
in a madman's glance.
You know,
of course,
I'm lying.

Come closer.
Yes, whisper.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

WHAT WOULD BE THE CRIME


if you loved me?
What would you lose
if you lost yourself?
What would you give up
if you gave up
defending against
your ghosts?

I, too,
am a loner
who craves
a lover
when I want; I, too,
am a howling maw
of misery
& trouble; I, too,
am skilled
at the art
& pleasures
of self-flagellation.

One day
we'll meet
on a border
of heaven & hell
& skip
between the two.
We'll have plenty
to laugh about--
our stinginess
with ourselves
being just one
of our follies.
Maybe the next time
we die we will
have really listened
to Hank
and choose to allow
what we love
to kill us.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

I FEEL YOU, BABY


trying to go
against your grain,
sanding those nasty
splinters down
and not quite managing
your heat
and not quite believing
your heart's lust
and not all together sane
and so full of fears
while you balance your love
on a moon beam
and want so badly
to be wanted
and...

do not worry
you are
and will
always
be...

but I must go,
without the hand
I want to hold;
I must make
those compromises
to buy some extra
time for
myself. Biology
is selfish
& I bend
toward
the sun.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Sunday, June 12, 2016

DO YOU FEEL ME, BABY


Do you feel
those little fish
hooks hanging
from your heart,
a thumping bass drum
lifting your lovely legs
against your will;
do you obey
your history
and dismiss your future;
does your temples throb
from a body's nastiness
and wet the flesh
that meets your center?

Rome screams
for its lost emperors.

Before history
there were moans.
Before that
nothing.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Friday, June 10, 2016

I WOULD WANT YOU


with me
always
watching
Greek fishermen
wearing thick-ribbed
blue sweaters
& watch-caps
wash salt
from their eyes
& talk to me
of childhood
flights.

The Aegean's net
of kelp & foam
catches our brine soaked fingers
like crazy minnows scurrying
between light shafts & toes
while danger plays
across my lower lip
waiting for your teeth
to bite
& coax a ribbon of red
to bathe in.
We can finger paint
each other's name
on our cheeks
in blood
& lick each letter
with menstrual madness.

I will not write again
(to you.)


Until I do.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

THE ART OF FALLING IN LOVE


A circus catch
in Hell;
Marlon Brando crossing
the river Styx;
Bogart riddled
not with bullets
but cancer
a non-filtered
hanging
from a lip looking
for a short skirt
at a boxing match.
Today we walk
to a dance
not knowing
who's playing.

We had the luck
of Beckett
lying
in a dung-heap
of prayer.
But
we are well-equipped
for this ride:
you have a few stories
and I have Bach's cello
in my pocket.

Tonight
I'm making a stew
from Proust's neck bone;
and if you'd be so kind
to put his gizzards
in that blender
we can dine
in style.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016


Tuesday, June 7, 2016

COWBOYS & INDIANS


Knew this old Navaho,
though maybe,
now that I think about it,
coulda been a Sioux,
maybe Apache, no, no, Pawnee,
hell Comanche, Mohawk--
he was some fucking Indian
--with a face, damn,
sun scorched & baked,
cracked like good leather
who, when I asked why
every one of his goddamn songs
were all about the rain?

He looked at me
for a good while
trying to figure out
if I was a Presbyterian,
or Baptist, a Jew,
maybe Italian or Irish
or some fucking white man
--because we ain't got no rain,
he finally said. How
are your people doin with love?

Gimme another,
I said.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Monday, June 6, 2016

SAVING LIVES


in the Bronx--
the drug addicted,
mind addled,
soup labeled,
helpless hapless hopeless
& restless,
the bottle babies
of inflammable juice,
the deluded,
the schized,
the solipsistic,
the sycophants
paranoid jeepsters
& romantics
trilled, tripping
& tripped-up,
the deranged
& derogatory
mise-en-scene misers
or porno prosthetics...
---and those are
the run-of-the-mill
crippled from birth
& channeled
by betrayals
great & small, but
are not beyond
my reach.

There are those,
though,
who are
beyond me:
a woman who gave
a placenta soaked
all the news that's fit to print
paper to a lady going to work
with her two premature twins lying
above the fold;
or a man who watched
his dad & mom,
hand in hand
go back into their home
that his dad had taken
a match to;
or a man thinking
his teeth are ice cubes.

There are no courses
to teach this; it is
a university difficult
to get into, but
once accepted
even fewer
who graduate.
It's not something
you aspire to
in all its
permutations.
But once enrolled
you must take
every and any elective
that life serves up. You can say
it's a calling
where you're always dialing
the wrong number;
it's a blizzard
in a hot house;
an ant
with diabetes
wearing
an insulin pump.
You've survived
without knowing
how or why.
You've made it
an art.
And now it pays
the rent
as it saves
your life
as well.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Saturday, June 4, 2016

SHOUT-OUT TO THE PREZ:


Hey, Barack--
ya wanna do something?
I mean DO Something?
OK...
Let Ali rest inside
our Capitol's Rotunda
and let those
who want to,
or need to,
or have to,
pay their respects.

If not--please
shut the fuck up.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

MARILYN,


her corpse turning 90
today, celebrates all
who whacked-off to her
in their dreams
& her solitude.

And I'm being picked-up
& driven, by a new squeeze,
to shoot craps
near the Atlantic
City boardwalk.

Win or lose
it will be
a better day
for me
for sure.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Saturday, May 28, 2016

SUMMER


has always
reminded me
of summer--
from the first jolt
of blistering 90+
my voice rises,
gets higher;
Beethoven's 128
becomes 18, a funeral dirge
changes into Frankie Lymon,
nipples signify
not mom,
but hope,
mystery & night
are my double helix;
a tough tattoo
sings do-wop
just because
it can.
Where else should my fingers go
if not across the expanse
of a bra strap
fumbling with hooks
& fever; what's more
exciting than learning
how to smoke
& French kiss
with your older cousin?
You drop dime after dime
on new sides: The Miracles,
Shirelles or Drifters.
What is more miraculous
than a pool ball banked
or a basketball kissing backboards
or the one/three pocket in an alley?

And what is more impossible
than imagining yourself
here...
now...
suddenly weighted,
arrived at what was
once your forest
of motives,
your dark wood,
only to find
you're really
nowhere?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Thursday, May 26, 2016

KISSING THE FATES


I know this babe
who's in prison.
I write her
nearly every day
both for amusement
& salvation.
I've offered,
sometimes,
a key--
but that
has proved
to be
a problem:
How does one accept
a key from
your jailor?
Both of us,
it seems,
are fated
to do
the maximum.
Let us kiss
those fates
with abandon.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT


My first wife
married me
for a Green Card;
and now you
for rent stabilization--Christ,
where's love?

First safety,
then freedom,
she said,
then love.
Dontcha know anything?

Fuck Maslow.
I looked out the window
at The Verrazano Bridge.
I saw that sonofabitch
being built,
I said,
from my bedroom window.
We were on our way
toward a frank & fries
at Nathan's.

I don't know, Erika,
do you even like me?

I could get used to you,
she offered. I'm gonna
work with kids,
she went on, I can practice
on you.

I know I'll get jealous
of you bein with the dyin kids
so much; that's the kind of guy
I am.

Cropsey Avenue was coming up,
and the air cooled
and turned salty. The sun
burned a hole on my leg.
My history was dotted
with acne.

If it makes you feel better,
I'm getting the worse of the deal,
she stated.
It does make me feel better,
but I still have to think on it,
I replied.
Don't think too long, hon,
somebody's gonna pull the trigger,
she teased and took her eyes off
the road to look at me, while I
kept mine on the oncoming
traffic. She was
a pretty good driver
but I was the best
with or without
a car.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

A DEATH RATTLE FROM CALVARY


Lincoln Road, Miami Beach,
hot as a motherfucker,
I moved slowly,
next to my father,
on his walker,
as we took our perch
outside Books & Co.,
me pretending
to be smart,
& he being
his cunt hound self,
watching the parade
of pussy squirt
by. I'd bought us
ten dollar chocolate ices
& twenty dollar Romeo et Juliet cigars
figuring we had one good afternoon left
to figure it out
but never did.
It might have been the heat
that swelled our egos
or our limited capacity
for love
that shrunk our worlds,
but whatever it was
it eviscerated speech
& we were both
grateful for that
I knew.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Sunday, May 22, 2016

WE TRADED KISSES


and rumors,
whispers of conspiracies,
suffused the concrete
against our backs
right-angled handball courts
in our schoolyard.
They were lit
by our backdrop, graffiti neon,
mouse eared, horses
made of iron charging
full throated & adamantine, a city
gun like rainbow jello,
weeping toward a jitterbug June.
Our t-shirts
still white, our arms
barely brown our hands
creaseless
careless yet tight
around fingers walking Spanish
inside each other
and the play of shadows.

We had time
for a cigarette
but only
if we shared it.
We saved our saliva
for our mouths
when they opened
to each other
& left the cigarette
perfectly dry.
Closer,
I said.
She laughed.
C'mon,
closer.
She draped one leg
across mine.
Closer.
Her mouth
& tongue
were in
my ear.
Nicotine
slid
down
my throat.

We had cut
our ninth period
in the ninth grade;
we were seniors,
we had
all the time
in the world.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

YOU KNOW


Dominican girls
are the best
kissers? she said,
like everyone,
including me,
was supposed to know that.
Yeah, I said,
I know it--
I fell
into this girl's lips
one time in Miami,
and still remember it;
can still
taste it, like
a warm pool
of honey.
Well,
I'm better,
she stated
simply,
assuredly; I'm older,
I've got...ways.

She let the word
dangle--
like the rest of me
was doing...

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Sunday, May 15, 2016

SHE DRIVES


for a living
while I sit
for mine.
She's a real pretty Dominican
with a kinda Brandy Alexander complexion
that you just wanna touch
let alone taste
while my shelf life
is long past its expiration date.
But she laughs
at my jokes
& that's music
enough, as we wend our way
past circumstance
& accidents.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

WHEN YOU'RE DEAD


you're dead,
they say.
What do you care
what happens
next?
Probably,
they're right.
But
still...

Hart Island, Potters Field,
looms large...
a storied history
of paupers perhaps,
but it creeps me
the fuck out
lying in a trench
with 150 strangers:
naked bones, hearts
with cupid arrows I
don't know...intestines,
smells, colons, empty
skulls & differing
opinions.

If, by chance,
you've been breathing
on my words
for whatever reason
and you don't see me
for three months let's say,
knock,
or call,
or get in touch
with my nutty brother (maybe
he's still alive?),
just get me
out of the ditch,
burn me up,
scatter me,
preferably
anywhere
where I won't
be seen.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Friday, May 13, 2016

THE GOOD & THE BAD


Miss Susie,
as she was called,
or Susannah Mushatt Jones
her birth name as she was known,
died yesterday
at 116 years of age
in Brooklyn; the last
of those born in the eighteen hundreds
in Lowndes County, Alabama.
Goddamn!
I've got
another 50 years (at least) to go
of watching Law & Order reruns
to beat her.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Sunday, May 8, 2016

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY


I think I like
driving best--
especially wet
etched gray days,
slick tears
against the windshield,
the slap of ribbons
of black rubber
& rhythms of tires
spitting pebbles,
cigarette pursed
between lips
listening to Uchida,
a Mozart sonata,
or Miles'
One For Daddy-O.
The grip
loosens,
humanity
fades.

Women escaped me.
No one more so
than Annie,
my mom: cold,
distant,
suffocating.
But she did
house me, & did
care for me
as only she could
before she lost
interest
& control;
and I want her
to know
I'm grateful
at least
for that.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Saturday, May 7, 2016

SHE FORCED ME


into positions
I had no right
trying to get into,
but she was so wrong
in so many
right ways
that it seemed wrong
not to try
to get it
right.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Friday, May 6, 2016

TO HAVE UNDERSTOOD


so little
at this age,
to be so late
in this life,
now strikes me
as funny.
The stumbles,
the missteps,
hitting
the ground
thinking:
I swear
the floor
was there.
Complexities
concocted
as the traffic
roared around
me. My breastbone
my blacktop's
white line; my thumb
up my ass.
Sometimes
the cars gave up
coming to a halt
and no matter how
many horns blared,
how many radiators
overheated, how much
steam rose from hoods,
they stayed
stuck. Fist fights
broke out
in my brain beating
each side
to a bloody pulp.

And now...
now it's all so simple:
I'm better
alone.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Thursday, May 5, 2016

THE BIG STRAINER


mashes & grinds & sifts
delectables & edibles & insufferable
into a bite sized baby's maw
easily absorbed easily digested
easily jettisoned & disregarded
allowing the barest visage, a ghost
of experience to cling to linger
in chambers lost or
barricaded.

Spaghetti or worms.
Necrosis or penecillin.
"A Swell" or swine.
Blue or blue is up
for grabs.

How sure we are
that our filter
isn't clogged &
& fogged & fucked
beyond reason.

How what we see
is what we see.
I am The Bible
as I read
the word
around me.

Once upon a time
we strained our precious pot
to separate the seeds & stems
from the merciful leaf;
it was our church
of ritual.
We prided
the sacrements.
We gently rubbed
and watched the colored grass
fall and pool in a mound below.
Stickiness and colors predicted
our religion & reward.
That was when I had friends
who were young & brilliant.

The pot is stronger now:
Culled & cultivated
by experts
& marketed in shops; it's
techno nature. A marriage
marred by intrusion: lights,
irrigation. Season-less.
We've let men
& machines
infect
what's left
of imagination.
We've let them
strain
even our
dreams.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

TO THE ALTER


fat & stupid
from answers
we had
& never used.
No chance
of having
children
save the ones
already made
but lost
along the way.

All that's left
on a broken plate
are slivers
of disappointment
as we paint
a radiant sky
black
&
brilliant.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Sunday, May 1, 2016

SUNDAY SNAKES


from Saturday's bowels,
like it's supposed to flush
six days of shit away
with one of rest
& respite.

What crap!

Please,
lemme sleep,
a little
longer.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

I'M GETTING A LITTLE TIRED


of this:
slowly committing suicide
so others can do something else
while watching. It's true,
I've become rather good
at it, practicing as I have
for six and a half decades,
but so what?
you can catch up
with a little diligence.
Don't worry,
you don't have to be terribly
aggressive; you don't have to go out
and buy a gun or a noose or a plastic bag;
you don't have to lean into a subway car,
or ride over loose-strung rickety bridges
in the dead of night during an ice storm;
you can capitalize
on what is already
working for you: keep smoking
after your heart attack; ingest some thick
runny Brie and sit there
as it narrows your arteries,
don't move
for anything;
keep your ass glued
to whatever seat it's on;
watch TV and nibble
while fighting
with your lady
or your man
or your kids
or your landlord
over nothing;
stay poor
and eat poorly
and always think
it's the others' fault (that's never hard
to do and very important);
drink up until it begins to hurt,
then just sip
until they tell you to stop
then say, "fuck-it"
do it anyway
because "no one really knows
or gives a shit if they do."

I am just trying to lead
by example.
And I think
I've done that.
Now get out
and show me
what you got.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2012-2016

Sunday, April 24, 2016

SHE MADE ME


watch
her undress
wanting
my tongue
to see
her scars.
Look
she said
how they curve
like a sorcerer's trick
disappearing
under a thick coat
of fur.
Touch them,
she said,
they come alive
under pressures
and penalties.
I laid back
whimpering.
I'd seen it
before
but couldn't
remember
the number
on her
door.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

SHE TOLD ME


her dream
of swimming
in a sea
of teeth
yellowed
by ovens
of hate.
What
would she
have me
do?

A storm
was at
our elbow.
We bowed
to belief
born of
grief's shadows.
How
had we come
to such sadness?

We dined
on Mulligan Stew
from an old Chinaman's curfew;
the tin forces
of a steely wind
braced us
for the lactating
commercial.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Friday, April 22, 2016

LIFE


The laughing dice
and the bored stickmen
wait
for the next
shooter.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Thursday, April 21, 2016

TRUMP THIS!!!


I gotta Big Cock!
That's right! Big!
Very Big!
I mean Big!
Cock.
Big.
My father had a big one.
Grandfather, too.
Come from a long line
of Big Cocks!
Yes, I do! Big.
My great great grandfather
had a schlong so big
that after he took a piss
he didn't shake it out,
he had to kick the fuckin thing.
That's right.
Big!
One tough man.
And a smart man.
Went to The Yukon
in the Gold Rush days.
He had a huge huge huge
Penis. Yes he did.
Opened a whorehouse
& a restaurant;
he fucked em
& fed em. That's right.
Talk about pole numbers!
What a pole he had!

The train is leaving
the station; the sad-eyed
ladies are rowing home;
the Big Top
is shuttered
as the laughing bones
lie bleaching
in the sun.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Sunday, April 17, 2016

IT FEELS GOOD


to have dinner
with a female
again
and watch
her fingers
slice her need
into small pieces;
how deft she is
with a knife & fork
working her way
through a thicket
of motives.

Neither of us
are in a rush
to move toward
dessert; we know
we will arrive
there soon enough.
There is no danger
of running out
of room
for that.

Some things
never get
old.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Thursday, April 14, 2016

THE GIRLS OF SENEGAL


think I'm funny
when I flirt with them.
I'd have to be dead
not to--
that's how beautiful
they are;
the most precious fruit
in a supermarket
of extravagance.

They are lit
from the inside;
their blue/black skin
glows with the kind of light
many people, who are smart,
will read by.

You are not old mister,
no,no,no, Mamouda and Neeva sing,
we do not see age,
different in my country.
I come from a Kleenex culture,
I tell them, "Use once,
then throw away."
They laugh
and know
it's true.

I shop there
for many reasons:
it's closer
to my leaden
& lurching step;
the food is better;
the butcher slips
me a steak
& charges me
for chicken;
but it's the girls
who mean the most;
it's the girls
who tell me
not to worry;
it's the girls
who bring me food
when I'm sick
or miserable;
or out of sorts;
it's the girls
who bring me gifts
from their Senegalese village:
a painting, a bracelet,
a picture of their family.

And so I spend
what little money I have
to be loved
even now
at my age. I'm a poet
you see,
stupid, irrational
in regard
to things
lesser beings
think of as rational:
money,
health,
possessions.
If I did that,
I believe,
I'd waste
energy,
precious
energy.
Better to contemplate
love
and God,
and cherish
victories
no matter
how slight.
Somebody
has to
suffer
&
dance.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

YES MOMMY, OF COURSE, DADDY


always followed
by the silent
Fuck You
writ large
or small
once the lights
dimmed, the doors
closed, the mice
scurry and shadows
leave behind fears
like droppings
and your demons
romp.
Get out
the knife,
cut along
the perforation;
invert
the spike,
jiggle the vein,
ride the white horse,
purge the loving dinner,
slip your panties
off those frozen ankles.

How good
being bad
feels.

The gasoline
smells so good
each time
I fill the tank.
Almost as good
as the mimeograph
machine smelled
as I printed copies
of "Ode On A Grecian Urn"
for Miss Edelman's class
on a hot and pregnant day
sixty years ago
tomorrow imagining
my fingers fingering
her breast, my mouth
in her ear,
the ink still wet,
the pages moist,
I wept from excitement.

I sat next to
an old colored woman
on the crosstown bus.
She'd sowed a mean leopard print
onto her denim shirt
and had a leopard hat on her Sunday morning perm,
red nails, buffed, and red lipstick sitting proud
on her lips, I inhaled her
renegade blues walking up and down the aisle.
A hard-headed lover, and head turner,
stubborn, opinionated,
twisted with abandon,
we knew what stop
to get off
and off
we got.

Mommy,
I said.
Yes, Daddy,
whatchowantsugar?
Your sweet self,
I replied,
Come and get it.
The demons stood back
and let me go get near.

It was only Wednesday;
and I'm off tomorrow.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Sunday, April 10, 2016

LET US PRAY


Sunday always feels
like some kind of Psalm
at the end of some kind
of brutality.
It needs
not to be studied
in ways that imply
interest,
but fear.

I will resist
hurting myself
today. I will
take another
into my
confidence.
I will trust
the Lord
& lean
not into
my own
understanding.
I will allow
Him
to direct
my paths.

But first
I have to
pee...
then I'll see
what's what.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Thursday, April 7, 2016

CAN I POSSIBLY BE


this old?
I don't think so
in spite of all
my body tells me.
I don't think
I am time
& time only--
though I carry
a King's baggage
like a Pullman Porter
in the Georgia summer
heat.
I would like to think
I fuck with time
as much as it
fucks with me:
I can be seven
when I want to,
hanging on a limb
from a garden snake;
or seventeen
& hanging by a thread;
but not the sixty-eight
I am just hanging
around waiting
for the curtains to part.
Only yesterday
my berry browned arms
swung from trees
& my hands held wood
carved to strike a hardball;
my fingers held a pen
meant to seduce
& buck-up a weakened bone.
I can see with clarity
all which came before,
but not a moment after
it all stops.
And where, I might ask,
do we go
then?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Monday, April 4, 2016

DUTCH & MO


were old friends
from Brownsville
Brooklyn in the forties.
Both had failed
at life
from an early age:
they packed crates
& read
The Harvard Classics.
Each had that old school
sinewy thing happening
and now were stevedores
on the docks.
They worked
& whored
hard.
Dutch smoked Pall Malls
& Mo Camels.
Drank straight
whiskey. Slept
when they could.

One day
Dutch spied a chick
coming out of chic village brownstone.
Listen,
he said,
to Mo.
Ya see that chick?
No, where?
There.
There where?
There, there.
Mo wore those coke-bottle glasses
and had to squint through them.
No, where?
There you idiot, there. And spun Mo's shoulders around.
Yeah, yeah, OK. What about her?
Listen,
Dutch repeated. I want you to go over and bother her. I'll count three beats and go over and get ya off her...then I'll make off with the chick.
What the hell? Mo said. . Let's get a drink.
No, I like her. I really like her.
What are ya gonna do?
I'll throw a punch, you go down. Simple.
I don't know.
C'mon, Mo. C'mon.
OK, Ok.
Dutch watched as Mo went across the street and sidled up to her.
He saw her twist and squirm and try to get away from him but Mo blocked her.
Dutch walked across the street.
His blood bubbled.
He didn't pull the punch,
but hit Mo square in the mug.
Mo hit the ground
bounced up
& hit Dutch.
Dutch went down
bounced up
& hit Mo.
Then they grabbed each other
in a head-lock
& both went down.
The chick walked off.

She was stupid:
she was surrounded by love
and never saw it.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Monday, March 21, 2016

"I'M DYING


to know
the ending.
This
is where
I came
in.
I've seen
this part.
Don't
be
a prick.
Stop
teasing
me.

I can't make
heads
or tails
out of it.
Why
He's kept me
in this crap
game
so long
is
a mystery.
It's
the first
thing
I'll ask Him."

"What do you think
he'll say?"

"Nothin,
that's what.
I don't think
he has
any fuckin answer
either."

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Thursday, March 17, 2016

LOVE DREAM #263


My eyes are glued
to the black tar
& cement
these days
when I walk:
afraid to trip
I look for cracks,
I look for fissures,
I look for danger.
I also look for coins
and bills and bags
of heroin--but that's
another story.
Today I was just looking
for the curb
as I crossed
University & 11th
and made
the steep climb;
this is NYC after all
& disasters & likeliness
are an old married couple.
I made the ascent
and picked up my eyes
in triumph & jubilation.

And there you were
boring those schizoid orbs of yours
into me
and smiling shyly
snug in your faded
fitted Canada Goose.
It took a moment
to take you in
and instead looked
for their hip arm patch
thinking it would tell me
what is authentic
& what is a knock-off.

Why are you so surprised?
you asked, you knew I'd be here.
Your right hand held onto
a shopping cart
as you followed
my eyes
with your own.
It's empty, Savage,
you know me: No food,
no clothing, no saviors,
no nothing,
just me. I would have
brought my dog,
but I can't.
He's dead
you know?
But maybe later. Maybe
I will later...
or maybe I'm through
with animals; they're much
too kind, you said, and smiled
a smile so rueful
it made my bones ache.

A few bums looked in the basket
but you shooed them away. A car
skidded to a stop. Its tires screeched,
a smell of rubber laced the air.
I might like New York, you said,
but maybe I won't; you know
how small town I am...
if I don't there are other places to go,
I have lots of money.
Can we go up to your place now? you asked.
Yes, we can, let's go home.
Not exactly, you said.
Not exactly, I echoed.
I knew, like you knew,
there was nothing up there either,
but it was a better nothing
than we had a moment ago.
I went to take your cart
and no resistance was offered.
When we crossed the street I didn't
look down--my self-consciousness
had the better of me
and stumbled once, twice,
but quickly righted the ship
and noticed:
I was able to breathe
again.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Friday, March 11, 2016

I HAD A LONG TALK


with my conscience:
It was time
to break-up
we agreed
for the sake
of both of us.

We're not stupid.

We know
we're going
to be tempted
to reconcile,
to fuck each other
again;
one last fuck
for old time's sake.
We know
we're going to be
sorely tested.

But we know,
bottom line,
we ain't no good
for each other.

How we split
the kids
and the pad
is anybody's
guess.

And
that fuckin book
is mine.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

JUST LIVING IT OUT


is something
I can't do
easily: too
self-conscious
about everything
I'm not
doing.
You might think
I'm working
on this
poem
right now
but I'm not
really
doing
that
& that
only:
I'm not
making
money
or babies
or curing
cancer
or opening
an envelope
or trimming
my nails
or the fat
off my soul
or forging
a friendship
or killing
an objection
or designing
a rocket ship
or picking
a mushroom
or taking
a shower
or medication.

The beetle
is prophetic.
And the morning dew
cleanses all
sinners.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016