JUST ASKIN'

What runs through her mind
as she decides
to fuck me?

Does she wait
for her molecules to heat
or is it more of a calculation
of need?

How does her body
shout at her; what demands
does it make?

How does it oil itself?

How does her thighs widen
in welcome; her lips moisten?

Or does terror seize the moment?
Contracting vice-like
her senses that allow
no pleasure, no acknowledgement
of nature's reward
for civilization's fascism?

Does she know
and does it matter
if it's me
inside her
& what part
of me is
inside her?

And does she expect
a bloody rose
or crucifixtion
afterwards?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

THIS THEY KNOW:

For Jason D.

there's always
always always
a game on.
It's a "lock."
They sit back
and gorge
and kill
with impunity:
The NRA strafes you,
insurance companies
bet on suicides;
Big Pharma loads you up
with what kills you
& cures you
& blackouts you;
hospitals divide you
in sections until your heart
can't recognize your balls;
they mangle deer & refuse
to adopt doe';
they encourage the anguished,
the impoverished, the fenced-in,
locked-in locked-up locked down
to believe in miracles
like they're winning tonight,
beating the spread,
going against all odds
because The Knicks are getting 5 tonight
and playing in The Garden against lowly Sacremento
and the Sixers are plus one against Boston at home,
and Sugar Ray is fighting Sugar Free while Sugar's pussy is open to the winner;
and, hey, first pitch is tomorrow and ya never know...

Tonight you have a dinner, a six pack,
and a game--that you know. You know
your bosses prick is back in his pants
and you're back in your crib...safe
at home. The rest of the world
can go and fuck itself--as it
usually does. But first
a message from our sponsor.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

COMES LOVE

I love
the helplessness
of it.
Two petri dishes
of madness
under the imperfect eye
of God, strains
to impregnate Spring
in her supersaturated frenzy.
How marvelous to lose control
of reason and lie
under covers cool
with the loveliness of minutes
on a spinning axis of desire.
Relax,
nothing more to do
than what is being
done.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

SOMEBODY'S GONNA DIE

first in this race
pitting me against
my brother.
I saw him yesterday
& it seems like
he's winning; he got fat,
sluggish, lumbering,
winded, stuggling
for air on his flight
up a starecase to see me.
For so many reasons
I can't let that happen:
who would I talk to,
laugh with,
get angry at,
believe I'm better than?
And
I never did him any favors
turning him onto dope
when I was young
& he was younger.

Seventeen years ago
I got clean
while he kept at it,
wanting to do more research
on addiction
& dependence
& being dead
while breathing.
And now
I merely have
diabetes,
congestive heart failure,
& COPD
emphysema
which puts me
at a disadvantage.
We had learned
that in our family
sickness was lauded;
the prize
was attention;
you did less
with more;
the dream was extended,
the womb elongated,
the warm float
endless.
Taking care of ourselves
only led
to taking care of others
and who really wants
to do that.

We narrowed our worlds
to only two,
racing each other
to the grave.

Stay tuned.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

FINALLY, A HIP KITTY

Wears all black--
skulls & bones stuff;
knows animal rights
& human rights depends
on which jungle you live in.
The only scars she shows
are the words she writes
which are all too often
written in invisible ink.

She curls
into love
like a clenched fist,
releasing trust
like a vagabond hitchhikes--
not because she has to
but because
she must.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

I FEEL JUST GOOD ENOUGH

For my girl Puma Perl

to feel guilty.
Don't ask me why
that is--
it just is.
And so
I don't want to do anything
until this perplexing mood
goes away,
sucked-up
by my natural stream
of venom
& recriminations;
until the vileness
of pleasantries
are denied
an easy passport
into the bloodstream
of pernicious doubt--
where all good poems live;
until I feel
normal again.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

I WOULD MAKE FUN

of all things
I understood
little about--
take math
for example:
how 2 & 2
rarely made 4;
or take, for example
progressions; or take
for example
falling objects
at a certain speed;
or take love
for example,
and how it makes a mockery
of rationality.

It's you,
of course,
sitting
in a dim florescent corner,
far away
from the dogs
of Hell
barking
on a wet Surf Avenue street
in Brooklyn
on a cold Coney Island's evening
the only steam rising
from the fish counter
at Nathan's
waiting
for me
to ask you
to dance--
& me
never one to see
straight lines
or negotiate
distances,
stumbled
over a raised
threshold
of chance.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

THERE IS NO GREATER THRILL

for a drug addict
than finding a drug
that you thought
had skipped out
on you.
Today,
it was a baby aspirin,
81 miligrams
in a tiny yellow Beyer dot
that helps thin my blood
in my heart holy clogged universe.
It was hiding
behind my coffee pot
and the thick black cord
connecting it
into the socket
behind that.
I had thought
I'd looked there yesterday
but musta missed it after
looking on the floor,
gas range and crack
between the icebox
& cleaning cabinet.
Shit, I'd said then,
and shook out
another pill.

It's not that I think
about medications
of all kinds
but obsess about them too.
If I wasn't taking drugs,
if I wasn't sick
who would I be?

Drugs have been my savior.
Drugs have been my confidant,
my muse, my benefactress and
my regulator; they've been the elixer
for this coward's blood:
They've gotten me up
in the morning & coaxed me into bed
at night giving me purpose
& dreams in this hellish game
of Truth or Consequences.

Soon, if I do everything right
or nothing at all, a door will open
on its own.
I've stashed Dramamine
every place I could think of
just in case.
Call me crazy
or call me Ishmael, I don't care.
But prepared
I will be.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

STICKY-NOTES

for your brain
comes preinstalled
from the manufacture
at no extra cost
to you; some work
and some do not--
as to why
we don't know.
They're boxed
& layered
with general divisions
& sub-divisions
like: Family,
Lovers, Sex, Food,
Pleasures, Pain,
Betrayals and
Not Yet Named and some
are left blank
with possibility.

Today, it was cancer
& The Babe & his daughter's death
at the age of 102.
I never had cancer,
never knew The Babe
and didn't know his daughter,
but I did have diabetes
and thought a lot about,
and gravitated toward,
dying & death at 11
seemingly going forward.
The Times had Julia's demise
noted & all I had to do
was click on it & there I was
at 12 remembering
The Babe not able to eat
the white of a hard-boiled egg
without blood
gushing from his gums
& pain indenting his body
into a jolting question mark.
My note had many
traumatic question marks:
how was I going to die?
how messy would it be?
who would be there
to hold my hand
and get me
from this place
to the next?
I was able to see
the starched white nurses'
starched white uniforms,
smell the disinfectant,
taste the bile
of fear, and fear
each minute yet to come.

I read his bio
61 years ago,
but it stuck
somewhere
in the stack
under Health
maybe Dying
maybe both.

Breathing
after the first breath
is dangerous.
It should come
with instructions
or warnings--
but then again,
no. they shouldn't--
it's a crap shoot--
let's leave it
at that.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019