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