I COME BEARING GIFTS

I bring you all my shit
and put it in your hands:
a hundred years of shards,
a library full
of tears, laughter
the wind catches
on its breath; these
are pedestrian
I know, but they're
just the foot soldiers.
Here's Johnny Too Bad
by Taj,By the Rivers
of Babylon, by Jimmy C;
Crime & Punishment,
which we've cultivated,
& The Ivy Crown,
which we haven't.
Miles
of music subversive,
and as dangerous
as Botticelli's gold
fuck rays streaming
to the virgin's womb;
vagabond's ramblings
& scrambled eggs
in forsaken diners,
thick slabs of bacon,
coffee hot enough
to know your tongue's there.
I give you old smelly corpses
of uselessness; dreams
brokered by cruelty; a city
of maybes...

My Medea,
I come to you knowing
I must be killed...
but not yet,
baby.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

I'M NO FOOL

I tell those
I try to help
in the patch of hell
I work in
in the Bronx.
They've been in jail,
institutionalized,
or homeless
most of their lives.
I never
lend money,
or give out cigarettes
on the first date,
I say up front.
I wait
until I'm lied to
a few times
before blessing them
with my largess.
They nod,
as if they understood,
and settle
right in
to the old
& comfortable
rhythm.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

I'VE NEVER BEEN VISITED BY THE DEAD

Maybe
they've been busy,
I've reasoned,
lighting the runways
for those
about to take off,
or land?
We all have our jobs
to do--like writing
this poem
in the dark.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

THE SONG OF THE GOAT MEN

White beards
in my bones;
swimming in a mosh pit
amidst realities entrails.
I am Nietzsche
circumcised. To Athene then
carrying blanched barbs
to a trapeze way station.
And there I balance
a dull watercolored world
of sculpture & science
with drunken rapture
saturated in music
birthing its mongrel son: poetry.

I want my madness
to possess your madness
which thrashes and pulls
the leash near snapping.
If I know
where I am I am
nowhere.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

VODKA

Don'tcha love
potato farmers?
Tilt up
the glass
& taste
Fyodor's blood,
Mayakovsky's phlegm,
the drip
of Turgenev,
the mad laugh
of Gogol,
the fever & grace
of Baryshnikov,
Vygotsky's reach...
The liquid breath
is clean
anger
only clouded
by rants
of those possessed
by a holy negation;
too holy
to be written,
too sacred
for screed,
balancing a universe
drunk
on its axis
& lonely
for its
children.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

TAKING A LEAK IN URINALS MADE OF PYRITE

All men peek
at urinals
at men
who stand
next to them
surreptitiously
checking size.
Their eyes
on a swivel
as mine were
the other evening.
O, my,
I said
to myself:
Trump,
on my right,
had a dick
like a wrinkled spigot;
Vlad had the head
of a marble.
I turned
to my left,
I turned
to my right
& zipped up
slowly.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

UNDER THE VOLGA RIVER

flows tributaries
of blood.
And that blood
flows through
the heartbeats
of dissidents.
And those dissidents
are the only ones
keeping Russia alive.
Remember that,
all those who think
those stains
on the shoes of dictators,
are freshly applied polish.
We can do more
than just bleed.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017