SMALL MERCY CRAVINGS IN THIS THE YEAR OF OUR LORD, 2020

The year slow walked itself,
carrying Ragedy Anne dolls
& busted six-shooters, past
the planned nursery
graveyard, generally pleased
with its yearly output.
God inhaled deeply
then pushed his last breath
of the day, a breath suffused
with a tincture of musk
& fine Thailand opium,
into one tiny nostril of need
after the next, checking off
names while keeping abreast
of how each spinal cord
infused itself with
just the right amount of memory
for their aborted trip to record.

A nurse moved from basket to basket
whispering cures while the maddened buzz
of flies smacked themselves upon windows
looking for the first sign of an eyelid
threatening to close. But the eye,
as God surely knew, was there as sentry
not scout and the laboratory,
once the place of advances now recorded
only the retreat of desires.

Here, God is the trickster.
Death, arrives early
& often, blessing
with a first & last good kiss,
relief from walking a road
strewn with the tricks of April
& her fruitless folly.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2020

BOTTOM OF THE NINTH

and the deuces were wild:
two on,
two strikes,
two outs,
and down two runs.

Savage, I heard,
grab some wood.
A slimy wad of brown chaw
mixed with lung phelgm
landed a heartbeat
from my cleated feet.
I didn't have to look up
to know it was the little runt's discharge,
my manager, a hardball lifer
and proud delinquent ducking
his 3 x's & tit sucking brood
not to mention a city
that had started to turn against him
after his last seeya next year tunes.

Once, he had loved me.

Once, I had loved him,
until my body turned
against both of us:
injuries one year
followed by more injuries
on top of old injuries the next.
Then it was deception,
followed by illusion,
followed by delusion,
followed by the wooden pine
of an open-air coffin.
Finally, we nurtured
a permitted hatred
for those who died
just when needed the most.
Savage, he spat,
do somethin.

I grabbed my stick
and sauntered into
the on-deck circle
as if I owned it.
I wore no gloves--
I was old school.
There was a smattering of applause
amid the boo's & groans.
Fuckem, I said to myself,
they know shit.
I pawed the dirt
in the batter's box
staking out my claim
and watched the catcher
and pitcher discuss
the elements of conquest.
I thought I saw a smirk
on both their faces.
Fuckem too, I muttered.
His first pitch pushed me back,
& his second knocked me down.
Then he laid in two sliders
on the black, impossible
to hit even with a broom.
I stepped from the box,
dusted my hands with dirt,
& steadied myself.
I saw the ball
leave his hand,
red stitches swirling in the sun
as big as the cape must appear to the bull;
a fucking off speed curveball
coming right in to my fucking wheelhouse.
The bat tightened
in my finger's grip, forearms pulsed
with concentrated strength pushing
my veins like elevated highways
from the world's embrace,
shoulders flexed,
eyes fixed on the globe spinning my way,
my body tensed & tingly.

But I couldn't pull the fucking trigger.
I couldn't get the fucking bat to move.
I couldn't fucking do it anymore.

Later, that night,
when my wife slid into bed
next to me, next to my turncoat body
to comfort me I knew
a blowjob was mine for the asking.
And sexy she still was;
and loving she still was;
her magic had not worn out
after all these years
of working the territory.
Her breasts,
so round & perfect,
begged me to use them;
her cunt, waxed
& perfumed opened
its petals spread moist
& glistening...
but I was assigned
to the bench,
my playing days
in the old US of A
offically over.

Baby, I said to her,
how does Japan grab ya?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2020

SELF-IMPEACHMENT IN A WORLD STRUNG-OUT ON DANCE JIVE & HOLLYWOOD LOVE

Sunglazed & sullen,
buyoed & born from phantom
pregnancies & snake-oil salesmen,
the mules bray & snuffle
in the dark,
refusing to go up the hill
as their betters prod them
with the whip
not trusting any other inducement.
They shuffle in place
not knowing there's revolt
in each breathing thing.

Our nightmare sung
in open bars with faces slung
& slack-jawed. Hewing
toward urinals pulsating
with an ungodly stench;
words lost in a delirium
of contrivance
of easy hate
to what each suspects:
danger is differance.
Each face caught
in intellectual disgrace.
Eyes wide in the hangman's noose,
spittle sticky in word's embrace
caught before sound
at the mouth's cliff.

We would throw a rope
to our fellow travelers,
but the hemp has frayed
or has been cut
& the seas around us frozen.

Yet search we will
for land in this death
by water & what we shall see
are fires sprouting
where once were trees
which grew in spite
of man made ire.
Such was the promise
forged by compromise
though, sadly, not enough
to slake the thirst
in Bela Lugosi's eyes--
a Count Dracula whose breath & teeth
come ever closer drawing down
on our necks.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2020