JUNK SICK

SMOKING

2012-01-31T12:56:00.000-08:00

I used to watch my old man smoke
those Chesterfield shorts.
How he'd shake one
out of the pack,
flip it nimbly in his fingers,
and light it from a match
he cupped in his fist
whether he was against the wind
or not.
He'd inhale deeply,
and while expelling that first drag,
smoke coming out of his mouth and nose,
immediately take another drag
down into his lungs
which seemed to satisfy him
for a few seconds.
Sometimes I'd be with him
and a few of his Mafia cronies
and they, too, would smoke:
Camels, Pall Malls, Chesterfields,
and Lucky's. I'd see them dry lip
the ends and then flick their tongues
to get at the specks of tobacco
that snuck aboard or sometimes
pinch their lips to remove them.
It was as cool and natural to them
as it was to Bogey or Frank
who they all admired and idolized.
It went with the doing,
and it went with the getting done.

I musta been eleven or twelve
when I stole a few Chesterfields from him
and a bottle of gin
from the liquor cabinet downstairs
and took them and a pack of matches
to the beach.
Stealing was a delicious act,
but crossing into their world was a delirious one.
I got to the beach in Coney Island,
sat on the wet sand
my form lit from one of those old street lamps
on the boardwalk.
I put the Chesterfield between my lips,
tasted a kind of sweet bitterness that stung
the tip of my tongue
and tried to cup the match,
burned my fingers,
tried again,
tried again,
and again,
finally lighting it from the side.
I took a drag
and coughed;
took a sip of warm gin
and gagged.
Not a bad start,
I said to myself.
I smoked three or four cigarettes in a row, quick,
and sipped what tasted like hair tonic
just as quickly.
Light headed and a bit looped,
I made it home,
snuck around the back
eased the door open
and up to my room
undetected
and found my old man
sitting on my bed
waiting for me.
Come here you little bastard,
and close the door.

In a short amount of time,
Chesterfields tasted too stale,
Camels too thick,
Pall Malls were too long,
but Lucky's fit me like a glove.
And gin later turned into scotch.
Later,
circumstance would dictate
what was smoked and what was drunk,
but who knew that then?

Today,
there is a filter on my cigarette,
and coffee in my glass.
Sometimes that thought
gets me sick.
And soon,
I fear,
the cigarettes will have to go, too.
"Love" does not
and never will,
conquer all.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2012

DATING ONE'S SHADOW

2012-01-29T10:00:00.000-08:00

I was a shy kid
before I knew
what the word meant;
my body knew
before my head
that when I wanted something,
really wanted it,
I stuttered
until I thought I'd die
or just give up on it.
Early on
my body betrayed me,
leaving me to live
inside my head
where I cultivated
my heroics and myths
and turned them
into art.

Luckily, I was smart
and learned to lie
even while
the body remained dumb
obeying a linearity that punished
speech. It is all I need to explain
this writing jones.

But dating in my youth
was fraught
with danger
especially if the object
was beautiful and smart.
Those I'd desire,
dream about,
casually walk home with,
sharing a smoke with
and exhaling
before we rounded
the corner of our homes,
made me wish
for a peaceful death--
hers or mine--
before I'd reveal
any intention at all.
I'd have to sidle up,
playing angles, bank-shots;
not wanting to be obvious,
I'd arrange a neutrality
before arming the troops.

My head made up
from what my body lacked
and did all right with the girls:
all of them liked to talk
about themselves
and their parents
and their current boyfriends;
I knew none of them
met their needs because needs
once met
are either taken for granted or
are discarded
and left at the curb's edge
waiting
for the next handsome collector
who can talk talk talk
and is funny.
I pretended to be a rogue's rogue:
played hookey, drank,
stayed out late,
read,
wrote,
smoked Lucky's,
cursed
and memorized
Lenny Bruce.
It was
my calling card.
And so I fumbled
with bra's built like Humvees,
listened as they unlocked
those dead-bolt clasps
and watched
as their miraculous breasts
splashed across their chests
and I learned and learned well
their likes
and dislikes
realizing that although the drug
might be the same
each of us get high differently.

Then it became easy:
dating disappeared
in certain circles
somewhere in the sixties.
No longer did you have to ask
a young woman out,
you merely had to be there.
Except now the smart and beautiful ones
became smarter and more beautiful
and my stutter remained.
But now heroin
brokered the aggression.
Jazz joints
and jazz poems
did most of the talking.
I was good
and lucky.

I could go on
and tell you
how ill-equipped I was
in my later years
to handle arm-to-arm combat,
but I won't. Suffice it to say,
I surrendered.
Now I choose to take my tragedies
as well as my success'
and anything in between
straight-up.
Not that I have anything against booze
or dope or dating, I simply
can't afford them
both from the pocket
and in the soul:
they cannot take what's not there,
and I'd like to save what is left of the other.

And so, if you knock late one night
and I don't answer,
I'm not singling you out--I'm not
holy. It's just I now know better
than to believe
it's just a matter of wanting
what is absent; it's really because
of your absence
that I desire you.
Leave it that way.
It will be easier
for both of us.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2012

TELL MAMA

2012-01-21T11:19:00.000-08:00

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

I'm gonna miss ya mama.
I'm gonna miss ya.
I always loved whores,
those angels of kindness,
those nighttime angels,
and mama,
you were one of the grandest,
one of the best, in your face whores
I've ever had the pleasure of tumbling with.
You mighta been born Jamesetta,
but quickly became Peaches
to me and many other
one nighters; mighta been fathered
by a pool stick hustler,
but everyman who ever laid down a bet
or grabbed what they could,
when they could,
had a piece of your action
and wanted more--
didn't matter the cost,
didn't matter the price.

I fell in love with you
when your body shimmied
and when it fell,
when your hair was dyed
a black rooted whore's blond,
or when it sprouted red
like a cockscomb,
when your eyebrows arched
and when your lipstick ran
into your mouth's cauldron;
I loved you when your tits where giving
and then when your thighs and ass
was as big and thick as a Montana mule's.

And through everything,
you felt the painfulness of air
against which you rubbed
and made it sing.
I know nothing
made sense
unless you were singing
and sometimes, probably,
not even then.
There was drink
and there were men,
to get you through,
but never enough
and never for long:
drink took too long
to work
and most men took too long
to come and go.
The ones you fucked,
and wanted to fuck and stay
never stayed
for long. But you knew
that no one
can ever stay
for that long.
At some point,
the point that rusted
the place
in your heart,
you didn't know
who you were fucking
or why. The only thing
that was important
was the time
eaten up
between shots.
By then you knew
what it took
to survive
and went about
the business
of forgetting.
Your arms became
scarred
and your hands
blew-up and swelled
by the wasted dope
that missed your veins.
And that was all right,
with you, too.
Unless there was none
left. But by then
falling
was welcomed
as much
as flying.
Each offered escape
from the repetitious
breath.
You fell
and got up,
and fell some more.
And landed better.
You were Beckett's queen:
A real queen.
A real whore:
perfumed, dolled-up,
and regal.

At the end
you didn't know
who you were
or where you were,
and that
was a good thing.
Though
who could be sure
of such things?
This country
and this life
makes fools of us all.
But even most of us fools
knew the wrong star shone
inauguration night
and starting tonight
will not come out
again.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2012

ELEPHANTS AND PUGILISTS

2012-01-12T13:08:00.000-08:00

There are all manners
of signs
given to hulking beasts
whether the ring is canvassed
and squared, round,
rectangular,
or borderless.
Yet one thing is certain:
feelings precede
(and might even predict)
intelligence.
We might not know,
but our bones do.

Our stage
could be a stage,
or letters
in our fingers
or on a keypad;
it could be notes
that settle
in the flesh
of our inner
or outer
ear that turns
away from us
before we are able
to sing it.
We,
of a certain intelligence
disbelieve and fight
against it,
hoping the opening
will once again assert
and present itself.
We remember
how we danced,
of a certain grace,
able to jab
with precision,
hook and right cross
at will, stayed on our toes
for the full fifteen rounds
and took punches
that no man
had a right to take
and still stand.

Now
we know
what we want to do,
but can't.
A beat slow.
It comes to each
at a different time
and at a different speed,
but it comes
always
all the time.
You fight it,
of course.
Better, I think
to be like the majestic elephant:
a bone feeling
and a walk
to the graveyard
together.
They know
and do not look
unhappy. It's simply
part of it.
They do not want
to make a mess
or feel embarrassed.
If I could,
I'd attach my hand
to one of their tails
and go with them.
Unlike most humans
they have a certain
class.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2012

AS THE WORLD TURNS

2011-12-31T11:24:00.000-08:00

These sixty four years
that marched unflinchingly
around and through me
were often enough times
cruel and mindless,
but often beautiful
(lovely, even),
have settled easily
like a cat or a dog
resting at my feet.
The jails and institutions,
nuthouses and hospitals
as bad as they were,
had their moments
of solace, sometimes reprieve
from the madness
that scorched the inside
of my skin.
Even the worst of times
have gone too quickly,
for each defeat
showed victory
no matter how dim,
ordinary,
or of no lasting
consequence.
Each love was better
than no love;
every hate
had power,
persistence,
and a sublime
pleasure;
and each pleasure
no matter how destructive
gave the pure dream
language, and a gambler's
hope.

I have liked most of you better
than I let on,
and loved some better
than they thought I should;
the pirate sees treasure
at a ship's mast
before the deck
is boarded or crossed.

Tonight, at midnight,
while hundreds of thousands,
asshole to elbow,
wait to celebrate
in Times Square,
I'll have the covers pulled
up to my neck.
I'll know it's over
when I hear
car horns,
screams,
whistles,
as my fellow humans
divide themselves
from themselves.
I've never understood much
of their joy or hope or faith,
but this far
I've made it; more
I can't say.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

BLUE CHRISTMAS

2011-12-25T12:53:00.000-08:00

One of the problems
with being
me
this time
of year
is:
I've perfected
all this bullshit
without
many people
to tell it to.

Of course,
that's one
of the benefits,
too.

Listening
to Etta James
singing,
Someone To Watch
Over Me,
tears you
up
as you think
of her
lying
tethered
to some wires and tubes
snaking
this way and that
blind and demented
weaving herself
into the darkness
you'd like
someone
to know
what the fuck
you're talking about.

But fuck it--
I'll go to Chinatown
and dine among
big families
seated uncomfortably
between crying babies
and mothers
and grandparents
and aunts
and uncles
without pretending
I'm slant eyed
and single.
I don't believe
in illusions
for me
and
you.

I've always been
a fool.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

SHE LOVES ME, HE LOVES ME NOT

2011-12-25T12:15:00.000-08:00

Women are girls
and men are boys
in matters of the heart.
Each walk down the street
clutching their cell phones
as if they were mirrors
of worth;
each ring,
every silence,
all text,
confirming
size
and suspicion.
They cannot believe love
nor its absence;
each past moment
trails them
from bed
to bathroom
to bar
to boardroom
and back
again.
It's as if they mainline
affection;
each dose
needing
need
to be quicker,
stronger,
last longer
than before.
Only the poet knows
for love to last
it must be lost
lest it lose
its otherness
and deny you
you losing yours.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

SANTA'S SYPHILIS

2011-12-24T10:03:00.001-08:00

unfortunately,
has grounded him.
It's been tracked
to a lone chimney
somewhere
within the borders
of North America.
Apparently,
this chimney
was decrepit
from constant use,
or not subject
to regular inspection.
No matter--
needless to say
a regular diet
of painful
and constant
penicillin intervention
is necessary.

It goes without saying
that the bottom 99
point 5 percent
of this population is,
once again, fucked
and forgotten.

C'est la guerre,
C'est la vie.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

VARIATIONS ON A TUNE FOR THOSE IN CONSTANT SORROW

2011-12-10T12:46:00.000-08:00

(Sung to "When You're Smiling")

When yer creatin,
When yer creatin,
The whole world slinks from view;
When yer creatin,
When yer creatin,
The sun sometimes comes peepin thru,

But when yer stewin,
It brings on the pain;
Quit yer stewin
Be anti-social again.

Cause when yer creatin,
When yer creatin,
The whole world leaves you too.

Thank you
Thank you
Thank you...

(don't ask...

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

PARENTS--

2011-12-04T23:08:00.000-08:00

who can imagine them
doin it?
I, certainly,
wouldn't want to go
on that kind of limb.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

KNOCK KNOCK

2011-12-03T12:12:00.000-08:00

(Don't
answer
it.
Don't.
I'm tellin ya,
don't.
It could be loud
like a sonic boom
or as quiet as an ant
pissing on cotton;
it could be frantic
or like someone on their knees
praying
or rolling the dice
or breathing
heavily
from the climb
or sincere
like Clinton
or persuasive
like your last lover,
just don't
respond. Pretend
you're not there
and maybe
you'll make it
to see
another day,
a different
opening
open.
That might be
all you'll need
but probably not.

The knock
finds you.
Even if you stay
in bed
covers up
to your chin
it slides
next to you.
It could be
a white cell,
a renegade
looking
for a home;
your gums
could bleed,
your teeth
ache, your prostate
swell your uterus
drops, your muscles
atrophy.
No. Get up.
Tie your laces.
And if they don't snap,
go out.
Look both ways.
For cars and trucks and busses
and trains and people and dogs
and messengers and crazy Chinese
delivery bikers. Step over
cracks and avoid the pits.
Sit at one of those wonderful garden spots
in NYC outside and have a relaxing ten dollar
coffee or exotic tea concoction lost
in the exhaust fumes and diseased microbes
from inside the landfill of your neighbor's body.

And just when you thought
you made it,
just when the ten dollar tea
breaks your tongue's sweat,
a black sedan
seating five turbans
opens its curbside windows
to make a mistake
that won't be found out
for hours.)

Whatever it is
it's looking for you,
coming
on little cat's paws,
all
the
time.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

GOING HOME

2011-11-27T09:26:00.000-08:00

is a lot like death:
an instinct,
a drive;
it's where
the fever
started
and where
it broke;
it's those embers
that refuse
to go out.

As you return
from your weekend
with your genitals
intact think
of the carving knife
and the surgical precision
possessed by the hand
having Parkinson's
and thank
the gods
for the good luck
of making it
this far.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

ONE FOR PHILIP MARLOWE'S DADDY

2011-11-24T08:15:00.000-08:00

Knowing you're great
does not mean
you're not great,
and it does not mean
you don't hate yourself
for believing it.
Being a fraud
is being an artist.
Truth lies
everywhere:
among the pleasures,
among the pains,
a mixture
of a maddening brew.
Nurse it
or guzzle--
it can never be
distilled.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF NOW

2011-11-23T13:41:00.000-08:00

You don't think
you'll get through,
or make it,
or fade it,
or manage,
or survive
another minute
let alone hour,
but you do
somehow;
somehow
you squeeze
all the pain
all the sorrow
all the hurt
into the corner
of your eye
and groove
to the pain
of each
moment
each
exactly
pristine
rendering
of sorrow
of hopelessness
finding
a kernel
of pleasure
mixed
like vermouth
just waved over a martini
shaker showing itself
as if
by just appearing
it will somehow cut
the gin's kick.

The hours
and the days
and the years
bloody you
but provide
backbone;
a spine
against which
bones shatter
and dreams lodge.

The bad loves
are simply bad,
and the good loves
are only sometimes bad.
But to each
we turn toward
before we turn
away
or around;
each
have their moments
for and against
which the seasons struggle
to assert.

We only think
each moment impossible
to make the next moment
possible. It gives us
room
to flex
to stretch out
to hedge
and dodge
and plead
and promise
and hate
and accept.
It is the space
that death
does not
inhabit.
It is our space
inviolable
safe
the minute
between rounds.

You must have heart
to take heart,
take heart
to have heart
in the many bad times
and even the few good ones
as well.
To know
that we simply cannot acquire
too much
is the wisdom of the gods.
There is a kind of balance
that we are not privy to.
That is a good thing if
you listen
and look,
and look
again
and often.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

TRUST ME

2011-11-19T09:30:00.000-08:00

on this:
you will be there,
too,
all too soon,
bemused,
altered,
confused:
the end
of those endless days
now has an end
in sight;
where you left your
time
as a big tip,
or laughingly thought
about how to "kill it,"
is gone,
camped out
on someone else's
doorstep.
Those good ol' Detroit orgasms
full of muscle
and horsepower
one day turned
into South Korean piffle
and soft steel.
An imperceptible erosion
of the you
you thought you were
and would
always be.

Do what you have to:
lie, rationalize,
use steroids,
pay
to be lied to,
sleep,
keep jogging,
eat healthy,
fuck the smokes,
the booze,
the powder,
get to bed
early
and alone,
rise early,
also alone,
vitamins,
wheat germ,
squat thrusts,
whatever,
and still,
it dribbles out,
without force
or much
meaning.

Trust me:
it's enough
to make you sick,
and,
if you've been lucky
enough, just
enough
to make you
smile.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

I DON'T KNOW MUCH BUT...

2011-11-15T17:14:00.000-08:00

Two ugly men,
one white,
early sixties,
the other Chinese,
late forties,
walked
hand in hand
down Ninth Street
in Greenwich Village
earlier this evening.
They said
next to nothing
as a light rain
began to fall
on their fingers.

I don't know much
but I know love
moving
to its own
rhythm.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

ONE FOR SMOKIN' JOE

2011-11-05T16:19:00.000-07:00

I just heard
on World News
that Smokin' Joe
had entered
hospice.
Liver cancer
will take him
out.
How they go,
how they go,
all the ones you thought
would never go,
but they do. In this case
a rogue white cell
got to him; for others
it's simply old age
and a natural decay.
For still others
it's a loss
of bravery
or spirit. Others still
feared a drying up
of what made them
who they thought
they were
and took
an early
exit
themselves, like Ernie.
No matter,
how they bought it
it cost all of us
something; a diminishment
of a world
that has less and less
of stick to the ribs nourishment.
It is all TV now,
all scripted.
Fighters fight
once a year, maybe.
Poets are sucked
toward mics;
artists, auctions.
While junkies junk
and alchies drink
the sickness spreads
to precincts without
jurisdiction.

I saw Joe
up close once
in front of the old
Americana Hotel
on Seventh Ave.,
in the fifties.
He wore a full length
white mink coat and
a black felt pimp's hat
in a pimp neighborhood
before Disney
sanitized it
and made it safe
for fat Minnesota tourists.
I saw him fight live
four times, three
on closed circuit.
I rooted against him
the first three
and for him
at Nassau
when he fought Foreman.
He came out that last time
hooded
in white satin.
His head
had soaked
in brine,
as usual,
for half hour
before he dressed
for war.
He danced, he bounced,
he rolled his arms and shoulders,
took off his hood and shone
his stubbly head and face
to the crowd. Nobody knew
how much Ali had taken
out of him
until Foreman
marched across the apron
and hit him
once
and he slid back
as if he was sucked back
against the ring post.
Joe slithered
slowly
like brown cement
to the floor
and stayed
like that until
they came for him.

He tried to fight
a few more times.
And lost them all
badly. Even
the crooked doctors
would not sanction him
after those fiascos.
He opened a gym
in the poor slum
he came from
and slept near
the bags and the lineament
and the scars and the wins
and the cheers
and the women
and the men
and the jewelry
and the clothes
and the parasites
in a tiny room
plastered
with fight posters
in the back.

He said he hated Ali
but I don't think so.
The cruelty, yes;
the stupid humiliation
to sell seats, yes.
But not the fights, brother.
Not the fights.
To view them is a coward's sport,
a spectator's high.
But to be in them.
My God. To be in them,
round after round
and know
that nothing else existed
except death
is something that most of us,
unfortunately,
will live without,
never knowing
that kind
of bravery.

He was broke, of course.
But he had it once:
ate well, tipped well,
made love
to all manner
of creatures,
slept in beds
under silk
and perfumes,
and talked talked talked
to the shoeshine man
and presidents.
And that beats
not ever having it.
And so tonight, Joe,
as you dine
on morphine
instead of rare steak,
sip tepid water,
through a bent straw
instead of champagne
in a flute,
I salute you
and those other heavyweight gods
who came before you
and the very few
who have yet
to arrive.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

I'VE PRETENDED

2011-10-31T13:55:00.000-07:00

to be whole
when I was fractured;
pretended to heal
when I was stitched.
I was a poet
before I knew
what poetry was.
I seduced
myself;
I studied
what I wasn't.
I won
seventh games;
threw hard
like Sandy
and batted
like The Duke.
To each face
I became
a different face
and to each face
I listened
and I lied.
Survival
is a hard won
art. The ants
know this as do those
jailed inside
their own fences.
We do not need a day
set aside
to pretend.
I've bravely
injected the unknown
into my arm
and woke with women
crazier than me
and grew crazier
at the gods reprieve
and pretended
this somehow was preferable
to the other.

I have given little
and expected much
though you'd never
know it. Those insurrections
were played to a mirror
of a narrow landscape
in a land
that is uninhabited
by hearts,
just masks.
And this is the day of masks:
jester masks, king masks, queen masks,
slut masks, masks of bones, masks of gods,
masks of idiots, of animals, beasts, gremlins,
masks of love, of lust, of fealty and prohibitions.
I've pretended
I was me
all my life.
I can take today
off.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

I KNOW EVERYTHING

2011-10-29T11:50:00.000-07:00

except how to live.

I know how to bank
a pool shot,
but can't save a dime;
I love women,
but can't live with one
and have always kept a reserve
should the one I was trying with
crap-out,
become bankrupt,
or, prematurely,
want to close
her account.

I can easily titrate
my insulin
to get my sugar fix
or heroin
to fix my soul
with the best of them;
I can navigate a black landscape
in pursuit of the former,
or charm physicians
if those skills diminish;
I can downshift
a Porsche
into most any elbow
at most any speed
while reading The Old Masters
after turning off the ignition.

I've turned a phrase
or a sentence
with some grace and style
and have left
more than my share of flesh
on the page.

I have an eye
for good boxers
and artists
of all divisions; I know
superficiality
through its depths
and can be moved
by longhairs
and crewcuts.

Yet money
and love
turn me
Houdini like
and I
disappear
and no book
no painting
no song
have I learned
and taken
to heart
prevents
it.

And still
I wonder
who
or what
are next?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

HAAGEN-DAZS IS THE ONLY PUSSY I LIKE TO LICK NOW

2011-10-17T14:03:00.000-07:00

for Joey Skaggs

You don't have to worry
about freshness
or taste; it is youthful,
unlined, uncreased, unencumbered;
it's not etched
by experience
and so its face
does not snarl
or bite
from wounds inflicted
by those whose hands
and head and cock
had got there before
and staked claim.

The Dazs tells you nothing
about parents
and boyfriends
and ex-husbands
planted or not; there's no mention
of friends
who've betrayed them
or who ask
for more
than they give;
there are no jobs
and so no bosses
who grab at their ass
or their time
and stake claim to your time
by having you hear
their little betrayals after
a day of your own.
There's no risk
of syphilis, chlamydia,
yeast
or urinary infections;
no pounds
they have to shed;
nowhere they
have to be.
They do not care
what you've eaten
before you get to them,
nor what it is you're watching
as you wait
for them to soften
(or that you're already soft for that matter).

At my age
I do not care for arguments,
only to stay alive
a little while longer
to catch some more grace
from the gods. I still need
something
to soothe
and morphine and booze
demand too much
of my time
and money.

At one time
I was in love
with the chase,
the battle
of wits,
the jousting
in new mirrors
in strange bathrooms
where the souls
of women are hung
and displayed.
I loved the conquest
and sometimes love
that lasted as long
as two people
having compatible neurosis
would let it.

But now I like my love
measured
in pints
that are easily
replaceable.
If I got five bucks,
or ten,
and I usually do,
I can pull a pint or two
off the frozen shelf
and take it home with me.
I will not have to hear
about the day,
about the kids,
about the disappointments
or the disillusions.
And I will not have to hear
about all the things,
many things,
different things each day,
I'm not doing.
But could do.
If only
I cared--which I usually never did.
I just put them
in the freezer. And there
they'll wait
until my need becomes desire
and I'll strip them bare
and devour them
with a cultivated
style.

Older men
have their ways.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

I NOW GET A BLOW JOB

2011-10-10T15:53:00.000-07:00

once a year
on my birthday.
It's a good thing
at my age
the years go by
quickly.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

NO PORN TODAY

2011-10-09T21:17:00.000-07:00

no master-
bation for me;
I've decided not
to diminish my day
of awakening
by taking myself
on a cheap date.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

ON TURNING 64

2011-10-08T07:12:00.000-07:00

I want to thank
the few who
(pre-
maturely)
wished a happy birthday
to me...
but I especially
want to thank
the hundreds
of millions
who did
not---
you all know
who you
are: the good,
the bad,
the ugly.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

BENEATH THE LAYERS

2011-10-01T13:08:00.000-07:00

of anorexia
she hid;
underneath the tweed skirt
that billowed
and swayed
in rhythm
as she walked,
to the thick-ribbed first chilled taste
of autumn weather
in an over large autumn sweater inside
an earth toned body-
stocking that contrasted
smartly
against her foliage
leading upward
joining a multi-layered
muted colored scarfed
Audrey Hepurned throat
supported by pencil legs
sprouting up
like the youngest green stems
from brown leather boots
she floated
through Washington Square
trailing wisps
from a cigarette
dripping
with neurosis
and was courted
by two young
freshman beaus
eager to get next
to a girl already thick
with danger.

I couldn't blame them,
but I'd already taken
that course.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

THE BONES OF GRATITUDE

2011-09-28T11:19:00.000-07:00

Most men marry
the first woman
that fucked them
for no money
not knowing
that hookers
were the better
and more honest
catch.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

THERE IS MAGIC

2011-09-28T06:34:00.000-07:00

in your mind's wilderness
whether in forests
or the gutter magic of cities,
provided you're alone,
most alone,
listening
to the winds wail
of laughter, or the screaming
tears of a siren;
you can never outlive yourself,
but you can cheat death
a little; you can fuck
with the gods provided
you make them laugh
and shake their heads
at your folly;
make them bestow some grace
despite your meanness
and narrowness of understanding.

the gods coursed in my veins
or sat next to me
in my gin mill stew;
they gave me women
who loved me despite
my stupidity
and lack of civility
and even now,
(though not too often),
they knock,
sometimes late,
sometimes early,
to bring silliness
to a body
and being
that should have
long before
stopped
but
didn't.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

HEMINGWAY

2011-09-25T08:24:00.000-07:00

made me cry
in junior high school;
it was the last time
I read him.

I think I'm ready
to take him
now.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

"FUCK YOU" MONEY

2011-07-18T13:18:00.000-07:00

At times,
the thought of having "FUCK YOU" money
intoxicated me.
Usually,
I was broke
or intoxicated.
Still,
it warmed me
like a kitten
curled up
around and inside
a dope sick brain.
It comforted me
before it grew
into a cat
and became
itself.

That love rush
of anger
before walking
out of a job
or a woman
is circumscribed
by age.
I've done it
at twenty
and at sixty.
It's the same deal
as it was for Huxley
when he spoke
of genius:
"any man can be a genius
at twenty-five,
at fifty it takes some doing."
Maybe
I'm still strong
or more possibly
still stupid,
but I'm still broke
and I still
walk.

Batter up.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

YOU CAN'T KICK LOVE

2011-07-04T15:48:00.000-07:00

as if it were dope
or booze or coke
or reefer or pills
or money or any other thing
that's dead.
It takes more
than work
or incarceration
or substitutions
or institutions
involuntary
or chosen.
It doesn't leave
through the same doors
that piss or shit travels;
love laughs
at seventy-two hours
and it's out of your system jazz,
or days
or weeks
or years.
Love clings
to your guts
and wrenches you back
against your will
or better sense.

But you will try:
you'll think you've put it
out to pasture
or on a leash,
letting it graze
or tugging it the fuck back;
you'll try to frighten it
or massage it
sweet talk it
or beg it;
you'll laugh
you'll promise;
you'll lie
to it
and yourself;
you'll say
all that stupid shit:
a day at a time,
an hour at a time,
then a minute,
a second
at a time
and you'll still be
dumbfounded,
grinning like a man punched
in the stomach,
left on a platform
in the rain,
all the trains
full and hopeless.

When it happens
to you
I hope the dope was good,
almost pure, not cut
with shit. If you're gonna kick
you might as well kick over a love
that costs something
that gave as good as it got,
that gave you something to measure
a diminishing world against.
You want to kick over something
that puts your ass in the streets
again.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

THE ART OF BEING MISERABLE

2011-06-02T12:59:00.000-07:00

A sign
of mental health
they say
is how quickly
you can turn
away
from things
that make
you unhappy.

I've never been
more miserable
in my life.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

TIGHT HOT EVERYTHING

2011-05-26T15:59:00.000-07:00

It's 80+
in NYC
today.
It was 80+
yesterday
as well.
Winter
has finally given way
to a less worthy opponent: hope.
Each new thaw
is like love
arriving
for the first time
fevered
with expectation.

Young girls
and older women
have bared
themselves
of everything
except mystery;
tits and hips and ass,
arms and shoulders
and backs and legs
are in abundance.
Only the pussy
is hidden,
but men have never been good
at finding it anyway.
Besides, women
will try and save it
for a real illusion.

Old fucks
like me
are eternally young,
but most are thought
to be harmless,
while young hounds
are stiff
with howling. Rarely,
are there a shortage
of suitors.
Soon,
there will be
free fireworks
on boardwalk evenings,
fumbling with a bra strap
and zipper;
the stickiness
of two souls
spinning together,
then break-ups
and make-ups,
and promises
and new starts
and false starts
and restarts;
some making it
for awhile
most bowing out
to look again.
It's the same with short-order cooks
in diners
around the world:
scramble two
and don't
burn
the toast.
You hope
you can last
the shift.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

JOPLIN, MISSOURI

2011-05-23T15:58:00.000-07:00

has seen
its share
of disasters.
Recently,
a twister
mangeled
its inhabitants
silly.
It seems
the city
has a pedigree
for this kind of thing:
In 1945
my parents
got married
there.
He, a private
in the Army;
she, a sheltered
Jewish babe
from Brooklyn.
She traveled
in that hot summer
to do the deed
at his urging.
I suppose he used
the same line
that other G.I.'s believed:
c'mon baby,
before I die;
or words
to that effect.
It took her
all day
to find a room
that rented
to Jews.
He was learned
in the ways
of the world
and knew
that cash
spoke at least as loud
as Christ.
They were matched
and mismatched
from the start.
Probably
the same disturbances
that create
tornadoes.
The proof of that
is that neither I
nor my brother
recognize
each other
but remember well
what we used to
look like.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

TRYING TO BE HIP

2011-05-17T17:44:00.000-07:00

when younger
had me rubbing
up against
older artists
and bohemians
of many flavors:
painters, poets,
and musicians
mostly.
They showed me,
informed really,
about how to smoke
reefer, eat Japanese,
and shoot dope
in the mid-sixties
with a nonchalance
that was meant to attract
little notice.
They schooled me
about what to read
and how to read;
what to see
and how to see it;
how to listen
to the past
and hear the future
identifying voices
and motives.
I was told one day
about a film
(it was called "a flick" back then),
Jazz On A Summers Day.
I did as I was told
and saw it.
It helped my hipness,
but hurt it as well.
I pass it on to you,
but not
for your hipness
only your
enjoyment.
That's all
we really
have.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/embed/L36AhSocVlc

Reincarnation

2011-04-12T18:58:00.000-07:00

for K

I'd like to come back as song,
(this song)
(any song)
inside you
and feel
as you sing
me...

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

I'VE ALWAYS SAT

2011-04-10T12:13:00.000-07:00

near exits;
an easy escape
from myself
and other dangers.
A quick survey
is all I need
to size up
any scene
and its inherent
hostilities: too much
brain or
too much brawn;
I love my neighbor
with the same absence
of light
as I love myself:
skeptically,
impenetrably,
imperfectly,
while knowing
we are
capable
of anything.
And I'll always
take those odds.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

HINDU

2011-03-13T12:02:00.000-07:00

Home, you knew,
was always impossible;
and so you tried
to fashion a life
away from it.
You were able
to make up rules
that had nothing to do
with reality
except yours
usually
at the moment it was happening.
For the guys
playing sports
or gambling
it was Hindu.
If a ball
would hit
a crack
or submit
to a sudden gust
of wind,
or the dice
hit a rock
or somebody's foot,
you could call, "Hindu"
and that would mean it's
a do-over.
No questions asked.
Sometimes you knew
it was bullshit,
whether from you
or someone else,
but the lie
was tolerated.
Perhaps we all knew
that soon
we'd have to go back home again
and hear
bigger lies
that cut
deeper
than your father's belt
or fist
or silence.
There,
you could never call,
"Hindu;"
there could never be,
a do-over;
just an accumulation
of little murders
each day
in your soul
until
you no longer knew
whose soul
was being punished.

Gradually,
you grew
into the coat.
It offered
a certain kind
of warmth
and even though
you knew that warmth
had the smell of death about it,
it was a smell that smelled
like home.
I became good
at recreating that smell
everywhere I went
until I didn't need anyone
to kill me anymore;
I did a pretty good job
by myself.
In fact, if someone
was as bad to me
as I've been to myself,
I'd have killed them. Instead,
I've only killed
the kind ones.

I was too dumb,
too stupid,
too scared,
to know
or understand that;
too many people
stood in harm's way
who I never meant
to harm, but meant it
all the same.

I'd call a Hindu now,
but there is no one left
who'd hear
or care.
With no plan
or help from me,
it's worked out
very well
indeed.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE

2011-03-10T15:44:00.000-08:00

I was always attracted to weird weather
of any kind, but especially rainstorms,
ice storms and blizzards. The crazier
the better. I was always praying
that the gods would be good to me
and allow me to stay home
from school. Any excuse
was good, but legitimate ones
were better.
I'd be glued to the TV
to get every and all updates.

It took the major stations forever,
but they finally had to hire black
and Puerto Rican reporters. It was to those
hearty souls
to get their ass'
into the meat of the matter.
Whatever storm there was
you could count on the local stations
to sacrifice a black offering
to the sponsors
who loved disasters
of any kind.
The white sages of local wisdom
would cut to those poor fucks,
and place them
at the edge
of an ocean,
or in the middle
of a four lane highway,
car and truck crashes
piled up at either side
with ice ripping into his eyes:
"Now we go to JJ Gonsalez at Jones Beach.
JJ, how's it going out there?"
JJ looked like the leaning tower of Pisa
as he fought to remain erect;
the wind and rain or sleet and ice
whipping through his clothing and around his balls;
a black mic clutched to his gloved hand,
the hood of his parka falling off his head
as his Afro was spiked straight into the sky.
"Kinda rough out here Chuck, kinda rough,"
as he struggled to even be heard through the gale forced wind
pushing the waves closer to his feet.
"Gonna be bad out here tonight, Chuck;
the whole community has been evacuated. Gonna be bad."
"Thanks JJ; we'll get back to you later. Be careful out there
you hear me."
But JJ couldn't hear shit;
he couldn't wait to get back into the truck
or fucking car
or any goddamn thing
that had four sides.
And then you saw Chuck,
back in the studio and you wondered
whether you'd see JJ tomorrow.

It's been a rough winter this winter
and tonight
with storms ripping the shit out of most of the country
some snow some rain
inches of water fell here in the northeast.
This time it was Brian
kicking it over to some other poor black fuck
who I saw last night
in the same new river
saying generally the same thing as JJ did
all those many years ago: "Gettin bad,
gonna be rough,
folks are out of here," etc. Instead of a parka
he wore hip waders
and a cool looking microfiber of some kind
probably waterproof;
but Brian was still Chuck,
safe and warm
while the poor black fuck
was still JJ
wondering
how he could hold on
to a gig
that was saved
especially
for him
promised
after years and years
of journalism
school.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011

CHRISTMAS, FOR EACH OF US

2010-12-25T09:45:00.000-08:00

They've all staked out
so much room
in this transient SRO that,
at times, I'm the last one
in a very long line
to get to piss.
But what relief I feel has always
come with the crowd:
the singers, the poets,
the lovers and the haters
that swim the loop
from here to there.
They breathed life
into my blood;
stood me tall
when all I wanted to do
was fall into some gentle yawn.
Most of their lives, I know,
have been one kind of horror
or another. My youth
and stupidity
only knew exemptions
of which none of us
are. Luckily,
our horrors
are ours alone. Just knowing
that never diminishes,
but only adds to,
their song. And so, they sit
inside me
patiently waiting for me
to take them out again;
to make them
part of the whole.

I can imagine
one day
a chance meeting
and one will say: "Did you hear,
Savage's dead?"
"Which one?" the other replies
and laughs.
"What a bullshit artist."
"But a good one."

So, here's to them
and me, me and them,
us.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2010

MEN, CARS, & DRIVING

2010-12-02T13:21:00.000-08:00

Men need to believe
they are best
at two things:
driving
and fucking.
Fortunately,
I've not been privy
to see
up close
many instances
of them fucking,
but have been
trapped
in experiencing them
behind a wheel. (Of course,
I do not count any celluloid collusion
between the act and the editing.)

Most men know,
the wheel, the gas, the brake,
but not the intricacies
of the beast.
Their feet are too heavy;
their hands grip the wheel
too hard. They're too nervous
in crowds
or too dumb
when alone
to allow creation
or play.
They have little feel
for how they run:
the nuances of touch
for each model, each make,
each extension:
the stiffness
of a clutch
and its gradual
loosening;
the hard pedal
or flabby wheel;
how each will go
so far
and no more,
but knowing
all want to be brought
to the edge
of danger.

They've driven
a few cars
in their lives
and believe
they all run
on the same
gas. They are simply proud
of just putting the pump in,
nothing more. If it then goes,
they think,
they've done their job.
No wonder,
a great number of them,
get fired
or bored
because the car
refuses to run.

One day,
they will be unable
to put the key in.
The car will sit there
happy,
a big grin on its face
and hope
that younger hands
will find a way
to spark
the ignition
saving their best show
for last.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2010

THANK YOU...

2010-11-25T09:32:00.000-08:00

for helping me
get laid
more often
than I had any right to:
Thank you
Smokey,
and Sam,
Marvin, Mary and
Curtis;
thank you
Shirelles, Marvelettes,
and Chiffons;
thanks folks
for helping
create the heat
the words
the whispers
when I was just feeling
my way along; trying
to just somehow touch a tit;
allowing my fingers
to snap
and unlock
a clasp or two.
Thank you Billie,
and Bud and Bird and Miles and Monk
and Dinah and Nina and Sarah
and T.S. and J. Alfred and crazy Ezra,
and Freddy N. and Immanuel the K,
and K as in Franz, and Coney Island
and Greenwich Village and times
of left handedness and black stockings
and no bras no brains no problem;
thank you Lenny
and Mort and George and Rich
for opening up
many a lady
through a laugh;
thank you Bobby D,
and Allen and Roi,
and Buk and Mark B. and Fran L and Skaggs,
and Phil and Toni.
Thank you
for giving me parts of you
that you didn't know
you'd given me
and,
after digestion,
was me
to them.
You made it easier
for me
to sucker punch
them
while singing
all these
beautiful songs
which became
my song.

And, for all
of the above you also get
a heartfelt and hardy:
FUCK YOU,
too.
Don't look so surprised--
you know exactly
what I mean.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2010

FEEDING THE PIGEONS

2010-11-10T06:15:00.000-08:00

It is early
November: a damp, cold
and blustery day; a Dickensian zero
in the bones.
I push away
disgusted
from what is probably my last
dead-end job
and go down
for a smoke.
Park Ave South
looks as miserable and dirty
as a Rio favilla
without the humor
or violence.
My life
is 63 years spent
and fleeting fast
into the absence
of all desire:
sugar has eaten
parts of me
whole
for half a century:
my toes swim
with the fish';
a pump rewired with cat guts
and twine;
all my women,
young and old,
have smartened up;
my friends my few friends,
have died or simply
vanished or
have troubles of their own.
I stand,
or almost stand,
leaning against a pillar,
pull a fresh deck of smokes
out of my breast
pocket and before
smoke can reach my West Virginia lungs
the pigeons begin
to gather: black pigeons
and white pigeons, brown pigeons,
and gray pigeons, one-legged pigeons,
broken-winged pigeons, deranged pigeons,
nervous pigeons, dirty pigeons, and desperate
pigeons: rats without tails.
I know each of them
well. I, too, have lived like a tailless rat; born into
it, nurtured by it, held fast to its insane breast,
lived with it, guzzled it, in cells, in rooms
of daily rent, in my specially fashioned fence.
I've got by by luck
and instinct
and a curious
inquisition.
A security guard
comes out
to protect me.
He chases away
the ones who were slow
to get fed.
He looks at me.
I smile
and offer him
a cigarette.
He needs
to get out
of this world
quickly.
I know
the impossibility
and foolishness
of that for now
as I inhale
breathe out
and marvel
how good it feels
to be
alone.

Norman Savage
New York City, 2010

AND THEN THERE IS US...

2010-09-20T13:33:00.000-07:00

We have done little
to deserve this beauty.
We found it like drunks
who stumbled
upon their bed
naked
and foul-smelling.

There is the silky stalk
of the cat,
or how the grass sways
in the reggae wind.
There is the trumpet blast
of the elephant's nose,
or the thick bark
around an aged tree.

We will all
go away soon.
And will take nothing
and leave nothing--
maybe a little plastic;
our only reason
for being here.
That would be
poetry.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2010

AN ASIDE

2010-09-05T09:33:00.000-07:00

The gods
have been very good
to me; they've given
me what I've craved
knowing how bottomless
my hunger is,
in limited
doses: words, music,
dope, booze and women and
don't forget
misery--the sublimity
of an often time cruel,
and all too human world.
Had they been
less kind
I would never had known
the difference,
and neither
would you.

Norman Savage,
Greenwich Village, 2010

I USED TO BE

2010-09-04T13:49:00.000-07:00

a great lover
and matador;
I fucked Liz Taylor
and Sophia Loren
on successive evenings
while Bardot patiently waited
her turn;
they could not fuck me
out, and the could not fuck me
up; I was beyond women
and money; I was a shade short
of immortal,
but was fast
closing in
on that.
I gave the ears
of bulls
to the ladies
that Ernie was with and
while on safari
with Papa
ate the lions
we shot
for dinner
and saved
the female pythons
for desert
afterward.
I shot pool
with Minnesota
in Minnesota
and hustled his balls
while he was trying
to hustle mine.
I was heavyweight champ
when fifteen rounds
meant something.
I made flowers grow
and Bluebirds sing.
I sat on my ass
for as long as I wanted
and worked
only as distraction.
I did everything better
than the best,
even lying,
having to remember
a lifetime
of days before.

You can believe this,
or not.
But I,
like most dreamers,
know the dream
well. And, like all things,
better
than you.

Norman Savage,
Greenwich Village, 2010

TWENTY-SIX YEARS TO THE DAY

2010-08-04T13:32:00.000-07:00

I was lying
in an ICU
in the Bronx
out of my mind
from a controlled combination
of pain
and morphine
when a magician
came into the room.
She put a syringe
into an IV line
and a blast
of hot breath
breathed
into my system.
Kind, I thought,
her giving me a dose
before my four hour
due.
Curious,
I watched
her pull the lip
of the white gauze
that clung to the top
of my foot
where my four toes were
a moment ago.
My neck stretched
as I was about to see
what was so obviously
a trick.
She delicately gripped
at the first
half inch
the blood
was maroon,
and somewhat dry
as the pain
ricocheted
around my system;
and as she pulled
and pulled
and pulled
and pulled
it grew
more
crimson
and wet.
Christ,
I thought,
how much fucking gauze
is in that thing?
It truly was
magical, but please,
God, can the trick
be over.
I now had propped myself up
on my elbows
and felt my shoulders
and back
become bruised
and stiff. Still,
she pulled
and pulled
some more.
Finally,
it was done.
She disposed
the bloody gauze
into a receptacle,
opened a new package
and packed the whole thing
in. I marveled
at this; the simplicity
of taking out
and putting in.
If only living
and dying
were that simple.
But we know
nothing is that simple,
not even breathing.
The flowers know this,
the matadors and pimps,
the landlady' struggling
in their rooms alone,
while their tenants struggle
with the rent
and a way,
know this.
Even the fish,
who might have gotten a treat,
that evening,
with four toes,
had to wait
a long time
for what
to them
is surely
a delicacy;
you might even say,
a privilege.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2010

THE SECRET

2010-07-25T08:38:00.000-07:00

Everything'
a poem.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2010

MEDITATION ON RACE & BULLSHIT

2010-07-08T15:48:00.000-07:00

We are waiting
on Lebron
to make a decision
tonight
on our national sports
platform.
Ho hum.
He'll decide
to play
on any one of five
hardwoods in major
commercial markets.
Whatever decision
he makes
will make me sad;
sad for the souls
of all black folks
and sad for the white folks
who's souls were black
who's assholes
he's fucking
without knowing
he's fucking them.
I think of Jack,
fingers in the cunts
of blond broads,
gold teeth blinding
the eyes of cops;
Joe & Sugar Ray,
Jack Robinson, & X,
& MLK, & Marcus & Stokely,
Roi/Amiri, Spike & Chris;
white Jews who traveled
South, placed barricades
& dodged dogs
& clubs; Abernathy, Ashe,
Ali, Dundee, & LBJ that Texas
shitkicking ballbreaker.
All that work; all that
blood; all that grief; all
those lives. For what?
So that we now have a new vaudeville
filled with entertainers?
New blackface. New dancers & partners &
singers of tunes
so easily forgotten like Chinese food
on a Sunday.

It seems the worst
of the white race
have won.
They've taken the best
of rhythm, dance, speech,
sound, colors, grace, strength
and style and breathed it in
and exhaled a corporation,
a label,
a signifier,
a signature,
that lures us into
the worst sleep.
It has given us Lebron
and Barack;
nice enough people, perhaps,
but without edge,
without courage,
without heart.
I look at the ghettos,
the schools,
the prisons,
the six o'clock news,
and see further erosion
of most things
black without barely a glance
a word
from our president.
He has been deft
at using his race
to avoid it
while signifying it.
The country
and the world
as is
deserve no better.
We've known
for a long time
what is right
and made a left
turn.

Ho hum.

I had hoped
against my wish
not to hope
that Lebron
and some of the others,
would have stepped forward
and played for MJ
in Charlotte
for, if they had to,
slave wages:mere
millions.
Not because I'm especially fond of MJ,
which I am,
but because he could use their help and
he's black. The first
black owner
in NBA history. Maybe some think
that's no longer something,
but it is.

Watching the Celtic/Cav series,
I saw Lebron collapse
from a champion's stress;
they took his heart
and stopped it.
He was a long way from Ali
not stepping forward or
coming out for the last round
in Manilla.
Lebron looked
like he wanted to be taken out.
Fuck em,
I said to myself,
and moved on.
Now,
this most favored of gifted athletes
wants money
and championships
and will create
the most direct line
to get them--
and he will.
And in these times,
he will be idolized
by millions,
if not billions
who have
the memory
and heart
of a flea.

Ho hum.
Pass the salt.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2010

MY TOILET SEAT

2010-07-07T06:25:00.000-07:00

is, at least,
30. I bought it
from a horseplayer,
diabetic, hardware store owner,
I used to drink with
at a saloon
across from my
coffin shaped
apartment
after my original--
a wooden yellow one
--cracked.
It has served my ass
well,
as well as the ass'
of others,
especially women,
well as well.
It has cradled, coaxed,
implored, and pleasured
the elimination of bodily
wastes, exasperations,
and miseries while,
at times,
giving rise,
to dreams, fantasies and,
of course,
relief.

The screws
and bolts
that secure it
have long ago
come loose;
a tightening
is always necessary.
The seat itself,
has blackened smudges
and dots
from ashes
and lit cigarettes
that fell upon it
when I was drunk
or junk nodding.
Sometimes,
when the tip
of the cigarette
would hit my dick,
it would jolt me out
of whatever reverie
I was lost in.
Holy shit,
I'd say,
as I jumped up,
Fuck,
I continued,
brushing the ash
from my dick
and thigh, then
light another smoke
and try to get back into it.

Now,
I no longer drink,
or shoot dope,
but the seat remains.
Throw that shit out,
I sometimes say
to myself.
But I don't want to;
I want to remember.
I want to remember
not the misery of a time--
for all time is miserable--
the times of madness
and bliss; the times
where time had no meaning
and passed
unnoticed
especially
by myself.

RETIRED TEACHERS, INDEPENDENCE DAY

2010-07-04T09:14:00.000-07:00

try to fuck with
the word
the brush
the melody
after a lifetime
of compromise.
Their spirits,
if they started
with any,
have been beaten
to a nub
by a perfect illusion
fed
by their own
delusions.

Their words
are weak,
too mannered,
safe;
their paintings
thin
& boring;
their sounds
murdered
by age; they now
try to make sense
out of their lives' chaos
not realizing
that chaos has always had
its own sense.
They are only astute
at remembering
their file numbers
and monthly
pensions.
Most, deserve
no better.
Fear
dictated most
of their choices;
and fear
dictated their antipathy
toward the kids
they taught.

Still,
I've been lucky,
to have met a few
who catered
a sweet mix
of insanity and light;
who knew
my eyes
took in
their legs
and hiked their skirts higher;
who knew my despair
about being alive
in my young cage
and fed me the raw meat
of ideas
and their opposites
which
allowed me
joy
of a kind
and opened up
ways
and
most importantly
exits.

On this day,
I lift a glass
to them--
the good ones,
the glad ones,
the mad ones,
the soul spent ones--
before, now, forever;
tonight
and
always.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2010

YEAH, I NAILED HER TOO

2010-07-01T08:11:00.000-07:00

Fortunately
or not,
nothing much
is lost
to memory.
She made me think
of that girl I wanted to fuck
when fifteen
while me
and the legion of other cripples,
the old
the infirm
the mad
waited for the soon to be extinct M1 bus
rather than fade
the murderous underground transit
here, in NYC.
She was a pretty young thing,
jaunty, perky, her nipples
proudly displaying
a taste me sign
for those lucky enough
to get that close.
50 years ago
there was another
much like her
who pivoted
before my teenaged fever
touched her
instead
choosing a tough
tattooed Italian
I used to hang with
a bit older
than me.
It bothered me,
but not too much;
I was getting enough
from other angels of the night--
community whores--
and had a few others
on, or near,
the hook.

Ten years later,
we met again. She
living with her mother;
me, living with my devils,
and we finally fucked.
What turned her head around
is not for me to say.
Perhaps, attraction,
though I doubt it;
more likely desperation
and a way for her
to get out.
But I was somewhere else, too.
I was only looking for "exits,"
not caring or knowing that
there is none
except the one
that's permanent,
but knowing that
gave me a kind of freedom
while going down the sinkhole
and playing in the swill.

Now,
I can't fuck anyone
except me
and only metaphorically.
The cock,
I've learned,
reluctantly,
does not come
with a lifetime
guarantee. Still,
it's been a good
ride. I've gotten
more than my fair share,
and can't complain.
So,
I
won't.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2010

CHEAP AT HALF THE COST

2010-07-01T07:52:00.000-07:00

Getting out
from the asylum
of my childhood,
I put guns
and words,
whores
and nice pretty girls,
whiskey & dope,
books & bromides,
between
the chambers
of my heart.
It cost
whatever it did
then
which I never thought
overpriced.
Now,
my legs are shot,
my lungs
closing,
my pump
rewired,
some toes
swim
with the fish',
but the pen
still flashes
imperial sparks.
Even if I knew
all of that then
it would still have been cheap;
not that I knew
any better way.

IT TALKS

2010-06-25T17:25:00.000-07:00

to me
in rhymes
& talks to me
in simple sentences;
it talks
to me
through pain
& kindnesses,
narcissism
& empathy;
it screams
from balconies
& basements;
it talks to me
from children
just learning
how to ride
two wheelers;
it talks to me
through tears
of scraped elbows
cut faces
broken bones
after a spill;
sidewalks
talk to me
weary from
the worn heels
of broken men
& stiletto ones
of women
and angels
of the night;
it talks
to me
from jail,
from madhouses
from burnt
& gutted cars,
from white
Rolls Royce's
& the yachts
of the rich, fat,
& idle;
it is trees
& lemons,
circus arcs
& pilgrims,
it talks
through inquisitions
& boredom,
honing a magic
that only blue jays know;
it does not weep
nor laugh
nor pray;
it does not allow
or deny,
it just
is:
coming, coming,
coming--
to a theater
near you,
in you,
at you:
Mr. & Mrs. Death,
appearing nightly.

J.D. SALINGER

2010-01-28T17:24:00.000-08:00

is dead.
He never mattered
to me
when alive
and now
only matters
as impetus
for this poem
when dead.
"Catcher"
never did
"catch" me.
Never identified
with its hero
and found him
and the book
pretty boring:
A pretty boy
doing pretty things
and finding
a little ugliness
along the way.
Most of this life
is ugly
and my life
has been uglier
than that.
Only kindness
of any kind
is surprising.
I suppose
that sounds
pretty selfish
and stupid
and I suppose
it is.
But so
is art
and artists.
Particularly
artists
of any kind.
It's a very selfish
craft, indulged in
by selfish people
with a bloated
sense
of importance
far beyond
their worth.
I'll give him this though:
he struggled with the word
and I hope
someone else
will return the favor
to me
in kind.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2010

BLIZZARDS

2009-12-29T06:24:00.000-08:00

I grew up
in a blizzard
of bullshit.
When I finally came
out of the gash
the doctor
should have
handed me
a muffler
and ear flaps.
Instead,
he gave me
a shovel--
and I've been digging
out ever since.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2009

THE TOWERS CRUMBLED AND MY BALLS, THOUGH SAGGED, ARE STILL THERE

2009-12-25T16:28:00.000-08:00

The towers fell,
as did my marriage
a few years after.
Both left
their scars
inside
and out.
This decade
has not been kind
to any of us.

Yet, for me,
the old fears
are gone.
It must be because
I’ve done most things
at least
once
and having failed at them
done them again
and again
and again
probably
explains it.
After some time
your failures
are like your farts:
hardly noticeable and,
if they are,
not too bad--
for you
that is.

Physically,
I’ve never been worse:
my legs are shot,
my lungs wheeze and bubble with thick globs of yellowish phlegm,
diabetes has eaten parts of me whole,
my dick has taken off
to parts unknown,
my pump’s rewired and beats only
when medicated,
but the writing has never gone better.
What I thought was complicated,
like the inner workings of a cunt,
was really rather simple: if you stay
at it long enough,
have a little talent
and a little luck,
and work it
honestly
she will come
and so will
you.

This was not a trade-off
I knowingly made.
But after all the women,
all the jobs,
all the hirings
and all the firings,
all the misses
and near misses,
the hospitals,
institutions,
incarcerations
forced
and otherwise,
the dinners
and lunches
and afternoons,
the cops and the rent,
the hopes and handfuls
of shit...
it was rather nice to hear
Bach and Mozart last night
at Carnegie,
have a simple plate of Chow Fun
in Chinatown today,
come home
and put one word
after the other
until this
appeared.

It was so easy
even you
could do it.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2009

MY SIDE OF THE PILLAR

2009-12-20T09:28:00.000-08:00

I'd gotten to work late,
of course,
but still needed a smoke
to brace myself
against the agony
that waited for me
upstairs.
Each day,
contained it's own difference,
or indifference,
in it's own particular way,
but was constant
in its agony.

Leaning against
my side of the pillar
was another guy
smoking
taking up
my room
my position
my hedge;
and my second spot
was taken, too.
Shit.
I ambled over
to my least favorite choice
and lit a Lucky.
After two drags
the first guy moved off
and I slid over.
Better, I said,
exhaling.
I drew in deeply.
The day can now begin,
I reasoned,
even though
I knew
it had already
begun.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2009

CALENDERS

2009-12-06T09:23:00.000-08:00

An Asian chick,
gorgeous, young,
in a short, hot skirt,
approached me--
an old fuck of a man,
as lost now
as I was sixty years ago,
waiting to go into a job
I didn't want anyway--
to bum a smoke.
I knew why
she looked coy
and disarming
as she slid up to me.
Sorry,
I said.
At first,
her comprehension
escaped her.
She looked again at me,
questions and shock
fucking with her orbs.
Listen,
I said,
I have a few left before I get off the grind,
and pussy,
at this point,
is not as important as a sweet Lucky.
She rounded and split.
Another good insight, I thought,
wasted
on the young.

Norman Savage
New York City, 2009

ABSENCES

2009-12-01T06:09:00.000-08:00

You will know me
by my absence
as I know
all things
by theirs.
The absence tells me
where the hole is,
and then,
slowly fill
with desire.
They beat
constantly
like an empty heart
filled with something
like death.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2009

A POEM TO MY READERS

2009-10-04T08:45:00.000-07:00

The best ones
are the people
who come to me cold--
without ever seeing
my face or hearing
my voice or experiencing
my charms.
They breathe
on the words
I've written
and
if they like them
they read on
or
if they don't
they leave;
it's an easy commerce.
The good thing is
either way
we're both
still breathing.

My words
are selfishly crafted;
they're not designed
to stop a war,
or foreclosure,
or make the world a better place.
Sometimes, quite the opposite.
But, speaking just for me,
at times, have saved
at least
my life.
Perhaps, the same
can be said
for yours.
Some might say
that that is
a cheap victory,
and that might be true,
but it's
ours.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2009

THE REAL GHOST OF BERNIE MADOFF OVER YOM KIPPUR

2009-09-29T11:48:00.000-07:00

Bernie has left
his featherbed
behind; no longer
are his balls bouncing
on clouds,
but instead are hitting
a two inch mattress
on a concrete slab.
You can see him
kneeling
and fondling himself,
smiling a bit
like Mona Lisa
awakening
memories
of better days
and nights.

The Jews
of past
and current
ovens
peer
through the bars
no longer angry,
but still ashen
over crimes
they've yet
to commit.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2009

STICKING IT IN, and STICKING IT OUT

2009-07-14T05:38:00.000-07:00

I stuck it out
and got lucky
with the words.
I always knew
I was good,
but also knew
that being good
never mattered
for much.
Certainly,
I got nothing
from the cunt
who spit me out,
or the cock
who stuck it in.
You have to be
just a little crazy
to want something
bad enough
so that the madhouses, hospitals,
firings, sabotages and self-
destructiveness makes
sense.
But even then
you still
have to get lucky.
It's never all talent:
it's being able to breathe
in those dark
and awful spaces;
kindness of some kind
from women
who knew better;
it's all manner of things
that rise
or fall
without permanence
or meaning.

The end will come
soon enough
for all of us.
I know that mine flirts
with me
like never before.
I know this, too:
I've already got mine;
now go
get
yours.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2009

THE CUNT

2009-07-11T05:47:00.000-07:00

is everything:
the beginning and the end.
We crawl from it
and to it,
for all our days.
Damned is the man
who resists
and damned is the man
who doesn’t.
The bees who flutter
and the mice who crawl
caught in immeasurable madness
now
and forever.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2003

THE TALKING HEADS

2009-07-10T05:26:00.000-07:00

scream from the left
and from the right
about Michael,
and Sarah,
and fucking,
and sucking,
and covert,
and overt,
and inert,
actions
concerning
the whole sick stew
while
we bleed
from boredom,
ennui,
fear,
hopelessness,
silently
within
our own screams
as we try
just to stay alive
and out
of a cardboard box,
or a wooden one which,
at times,
would do
just fine.

But we deserve
no better.
We have not been good
to ourselves
or others.
We easily betray
the most basic
kindness'.
Thinking
is all
too easy,
and dying
is never done
well; it happens
slowly, in
cre
men
ta
ly:
ah, no, no, ah,
a bit, ah,
please, no--
as the praying
mantis
rears
up
and devours
not heads
but souls
like
mine.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2009

MICKEY, MARLON, & ME

2009-07-09T05:12:00.000-07:00

I drove with my King
in the King's chariot
into the Kingdom
to see a bigger King
play an even bigger King
in a movie
about the Kings of our time.
But my King
was secretly
a disappointed King,
a pretend King,
a fake King,
a false King
(but still,
he was
my King),
and I've been
in jail
ever
since.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2009

MY FATHER, REVISITED

2009-07-08T05:47:00.000-07:00

cloaked
in a loving garb,
having fully realized
the reasons for adulation
single-mindedly succeeded
in redirecting my paths
to approximate a lumbering,
diseased and labored mixture
of blood and bone.
his thick and corpulent flesh
helped repel
a tissue thin, pin shaped,
needle of truth
that insistently jabbed
against his fleshy grain:
as much as he was a lover,
was he a sinner
to those who loved
and trusted him.
he used
their love,
their trust,
in indecent ways
repugnant,
even to himself,
that a balm
of constant consumption,
was one of the few remedies
to rid himself of the disgust
that ate at him as he,
ate at them,
satiated the starkness
of steel.

if he knew then,
that he’d lived,
beyond
matrimonial slavery
and familial idolatry,
he’d have turned Jell-O
into concrete,
ice cream,
into lava
hot from the core
to his gullet,
money,
into bullets,
Cadillac's,
into shotguns,
to effect
an exit
for an audience
of one.
my mother
who,
in her last two
poker playing decades,
knew,
in her heart
of hearts
she needn’t run,
or even walk,
to win
at his own game
of self-serving
whinery.
she knew,
she’d proceed
him, knew,
how much
he’d detest
her coming
in first.
his thoughts
distracted
by the whir
of sickness’
inconsistencies,
unpredictability's,
that needed signatures,
exactness, a chosen,
if not intelligible,
nightmare, harsh
in daylight’s principles,
unforgiving in their erratic pejorative
of moving all
of what they might,
tunelessly,
try to move him.
the nerve of her,
to leave him
so fat and breathy.
the audacity
to just stop
caring
unable to think
beyond her next
minute.
always
so stingy
in the ways
of sex;
always
so unaware
of his needs
beyond
his next feeding
or outburst
of disappointment
of disapproval
in the sounds
of voices
only he could hear
of crass, but soothing,
eastern european inflections,
intimating deep and luxurious
goose down and feathered
armaments.
french toast festooned with churned,
and freshly made,
barrel butter, cinnamon, the dark cloves
and tracks, running down lanes,
with recently tapped
maple syrup, singing,
almost gurgling, in their crevices.
there’d be eggs,
if he wanted them, bacon,
of course,
if he wanted it, and
coffee, black and hot,
with a steamed mixture
of sweet milk, and honey, and,
home made
sticky buns, if
he wanted them.
how could
so much love
go unpunished?
and still,
he felt,
picked on;
still,
he felt
unappreciated
by all he felt holy:
money
and memory.

now,
the onion gears,
once so sharp
and pungent,
whirl away
in a soft pulp
unable
to catch
and control
what had come
so naturally to him.
of course,
he was bred
from it
and for it;
bred
to control
a spiked
and wicked, duplicitous,
untrustworthy,
capricious,
and an inchoate
world with what power
he could muster
or bluff.
he bullied,
bought,
bungled,
and blighted
his private landscape;
he watered some,
ignored others,
reversed fields,
began again until
each blade of grass
groveled and fought
against every other blade
for whatever drop of water
was kept hidden
in a bucket
he professed
had leaks
and would
eventually
go dry.

now,
most things
are dry.
now,
the exception
is the constant.
now,
he cannot control
not even his bowels.
in this,
his cataract times,
his hardened wax times,
as his colors drip and run,
washing themselves free
of creation’s embrace,
as his sounds of songs and sex
get muted and lost
in the straw and sawdust
of creation’s wheeze,
he counts the minutes
to his next feeding,
he tosses aside
those minutes
as the day
diminishes
and the night
grips him
with geometry
stripped
from memory
or desire.
now,
he keeps
a light on
at his bedside
while the television
roars,
as if
demons
are afraid
if someone is awake
or has company. they see
his naked lumbering
on legs jiggling with fat
and weakness; they see
the flesh from his belly
belittling, and hiding,
his genitals,
as he rummages
for anything
to chew on. they see
him lumber back
and into bed, a bowl
or dish,
or plate, in one hand,
a glass of liquid
in the other. they see,
as he nods, his head
falling side ward, with and to
the wine,
the barbiturate,
the analgesic
he had ingested
earlier, and consistently
to give the screen
the opportunity
to become blank
and soundless.

one day,
much like today,
or tomorrow, a day
that might have held
a laugh,
or a promise,
he will go,
without especially meaning to,
beyond me, beyond
all of us,
but won’t be
disappointed.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2004

MY FATHER

2009-07-07T05:16:00.000-07:00

will slowly lumber
from wherever
he is standing
or sitting
or sleeping,
and snuggle
next to a worm
or the charcoal hothouse
with as little
or with as much
understanding
as when he slid
down the wet fleshy mouth
held opened
and fastened
by pain
and promises.
if he does
indeed fall,
which is much more likely,
he’ll not notice
the bounce
of objects
near,
how they will lift themselves
and sometimes fly
from their moorings;
he will not feel
the heft of three hundred pounds
making room for itself;
he will not hear the sounds
that bodies sing when kissing
concrete, or woolen carpets,
or floorboards, tiles, linoleum,
or the soft feathers
of pillows
scarred by the indentations
of dreams.
he will have died
without being suckled
by all the women
who held him
through endless days
and nights; he will
have died
without his sons
who suckled him
in ways
they shouldn’t have,
coming to rescue
a panoply of errors
of judgment,
of haste,
of impulsiveness,
of lies, deceits,
betrayals, of pitting
one against the other,
in self-serving cruel
and merciless acts
of benevolence.
when his breath
cuts the dust of rest
and reward, he will have gleaned
no further understanding
of who
or why
this is,
only a lament
to a world
unaware
of how fine
and generous
a gentleman
he truly was.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2004

THE REPLACEMENT GAME

2009-07-06T05:14:00.000-07:00

The leaves looked the same:
banana spotted brown, withered, rotten--
but they would return.
The rusted cars and cans
would be replaced.
The loves who’d abandoned you
would knock
in one form or another
some night, perhaps
in another form--
All was right
with the world.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2003

MY WIFE'S CONUNDRUM

2009-07-05T07:39:00.000-07:00

She ran,
like a convict,
seeing a sliver
of chance
at what
she didn’t know.
All she knew
it was away
from the bars
of a marriage
gone sour.
Her mother,
alone
and praying
for her
aloneness,
was her
guide.
Her father,
drunk
and faltering
held her
in his sway.
She had loved him.
She had hated him.
She had wanted him
to know
her name.
I knew
her name,
but did not
remember
and worse,
understand
how important
her name was
to her.
I did not
love her
like he
did not
love her
with a warmth
that begged
for a kind of intimacy
that drunks
have drunk
away.
I was almost him
though.
I met his age;
I met his anger;
I met his disease;
I met all
her fantasies.
What she could not
understand,
and what gave her
pause,
was that I spoke
English;
that I knew
her soul
and what
and how
her soul
thirsted for.
It confused her.
It took many years
before
she realized
that I would never
go away
which meant
she
could never go away
unless
she tore
the flesh
from both
our bodies.
Which, she did.
It is over a year now,
and the only thing I still fear
is the fear
of infection,
or worse:
barometric
isolation
in a ward
that has neither
time
nor space
for healing.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2004

TRYING TO SPLIT

2009-07-04T07:12:00.000-07:00

Blood caked moon
sits atop the eyes
of a praying mantis
whose head
is inside
the mouth
of his lover.
Whoever goes to pray
needs no coins
or sins.
It snaps
like a guillotine
cleaving,
memory,
from desire.
My wife
long ago
removed
herself
from our lives,
takes seriously
her vows
of language.
A language removed
from meaning while
the ants meander
and the flies gather
upon the corpse
of failure.
The corpse
who reads
these words
as if stitched
inside the lids
of eyes,
and acts
as reminder
or foreboding
to what will come
from what
will not.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2004

COULD I JUST TALK TO YOU?

2009-07-03T05:26:00.000-07:00

for K.S.

forever,
if I promise
not to take up
too much
of your time?
would you hold
my hand
in your strong
workmanlike hand and fingers
and squeeze
when I come
to the hard parts?
could I smell
the sawdust
in your hair
and count
the callous’
on your palms
while I speak to you
of secrets
and lies
of a heart
that has forgotten
how or why
to beat?
will you allow me to see
how your soul
is ingrained
with what you build
and show me
how you build
your soul
piece by piece while
my fingers feel
the excitement
of your tears
as I trace your mouth
with your own salt?
can I go
yakkity yakking
into the night
while you remind me
where I lost
my place?
can I just talk
forever
with you? I need
little else: food,
water, air are all
so boring,
so superfluous,
so bourgeois and you know
how much I hated and feared being that. I feared that
more than dying--perhaps living
would be better stated, but not better
served. could I
arrive on my word chariot,
my horse’s mouth full
of foam and nostrils flared,
and whisk you off
for however long
forever is?
in this time,
this time now,
I will content myself
by talking
to the strangers
inside me
knowing
with as much surety
as I’ve ever had
that one
of those strangers
is you.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2004

THE BATHROOM AT SLUGS

2009-07-02T06:13:00.000-07:00

in the far east,
on third, between B & C
was hot. It was over thirty years ago
that even taking a piss in there
fucked with your imagination. It smelled
of sex, quinine, morphine, reefer, body odor
and wastes. Before sets, inbetween, and after
there were lines. Sometimes singles, often times
couples of the same or different orientation.
There was a kind of understanding: sometimes
it took longer to get hard, or find a vein,
or role and fumble with a stick, and so you waited.
The ones with priority were the players. They needed
to do their business and get the hell back. Besides,
in truth, that’s why most of us came to Slugs
in The Far East. The other joints where cats could work
ideas into riffs for weeks or a month at a time,
like The Five Spot or Half-Note,
were already dead.

One night late Lee was on the bandstand blowing hard
sweating into the collar of a stained white shirt that had
pin-pricks of dried blood in the crook of his arm
when his common law entered. She walked up, opened
her purse, took a gun from it, and shot him dead
during his solo. She turned, walked calmly back,
placed the revolver on the wood-scared pock-marked bar,
and ordered a drink---scotch, I think. And waited.
The bartender, Frankie, served her without saying a word.

After awhile people started to breath, some whispered, and others
went back to the bathroom.
“That no good motherfucka sonofabitch deserved that killin’,”
an older chick nearby said, “that junkie bastard usin’ her bread
for his vein was bad enough, but his bitch’s vein too, that’s even worser...
someday he be back though, hope he learned his motherfuckin’ lesson.”

The ambulance came, and so did the cops. They took out one living
and one dead; which was which I couldn’t say.

I don’t know if Lee ever did come back. I do know this:
men will be men,
and women women; that is the task,
and that, my friends,
is the terror.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1997

POEM

2009-07-01T05:54:00.000-07:00

To move
with the ease of eels
gossamer shrouded
snakelike charmer
beguiled and fashioned
from grace and memory
voracious, slippery
and shaking
like aluminum
crinkled
and shimmering
in a spectral sun.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1998

MILES OF MEMORY

2009-06-30T06:40:00.001-07:00

pinstripes and polkadots
and swagger; a voice
sounding like his balls
are in his throat; full of gravel
and Joe Louis and, of course,
his horn
muted
by a love,
his love,
our love
of darkness. we wait
as peanut shells crunch
beneath 3 a.m. highballs
in the 9th circle
informing us
of style: the answer
to everything:
how to dress
who to listen to
or talk about.
our heads surreptitiously twisted
each time the wind
rushed in a body
not his
we casually turned back
to the conversation...
or shot glass... or chick
we were trying to make
while evenings danced
and everyone was young,
and brilliant,
and affected
with drama; our loves
dangerously alive
or thick with death
like wet ash;
music framing each intent
with motive, quixotic
and sublime in it’s queer logic
informing gamble
not yet oil slicked with living
too hard or recklessly. our precipice,
our wit. those who could not solo
got out of the game early; those whose ideas
came from books
were delivered
to same; never getting laid
they hunkered back
to Brooklyn or Jersey or Queens
to await marriage...perhaps dentistry,
perhaps both.

Those nights we passed,
how full
and empty they seem now
stuck in the mind
like gnarled venetian blinds;
yet they emit light
of a certain kind,
one that is informed
by pleasure.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1999

MY CHOPPERS

2009-06-29T05:24:00.000-07:00

are negotiating
with what remains
of my mouth: chew this
slowly, you fool; too sticky,
idiot; asshole,
that side no longer exists.....and so on.
Sugar has eaten parts of me whole.
The ride of word passion bloodied sanity.
I’ve fucked with the odds; they have rendered me
a chalk horse, scratch, even money
to be turned into glue
anytime soon.

This coat hanger of flesh is closer to seventy
than fifty: half a foot of intricate plumbing
and rewiring on my pump, a mouth
full of rot, fingers fattened, gnarled and bent,
eyes blurred with cataracts thick
with sugar, liquor, and dope hued saturation.

I’ve had a long continuous fist-fight
with death. People were merely pre-lims.
Usually outclassed and not very interesting.
I’ve stuck words
up deaths’ ass more than once.
He was with every woman I’ve ever slept with;
he was between the sheets of every institution
I fell asleep in; every tooth that was pulled
he yanked on; every drunk I’ve ever been on
he found money for; all the senseless mornings
of going to be fired from a job
I didn’t want anyway, he waited,
at a gin mill or dope spot
to put my rage into my fist,
or vein. A wise and patient man
death is. He’ll have to be.
I’ll fool with him some more.
Death hates Life.
Words are Life. They leap around
like ballerinas in the brain. They make fun
of teeth, and hearts, and pricks, and cunts and balls, and beerbellys,
crooked fingers and phantom limbs; they laugh
at the silly ravings and meanderings of ants;
they are the final hedge against inflation or devaluation
of the soul; they are the salt edged tit;
they provide power
as the game works
on.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2000

CALL IT GUTS

2009-06-27T05:49:00.000-07:00

the way the body works
through fear
turning towards the edge
of your Procrustean climax
and allowing your feet
to fall
over the side
dangling
head bowed;
milky cataract eyes
sifting through the bones,
(the geometry of dreams),
(the cross and the drummer;
the hiked skirt; a riff
of wonder; pools slick
with scag oils)
palms flat,
fingers smoothing creases,
elbows locked, (the back, however,
is humped, curved, a loose
contingent of ganglion,
nervous tissue, vertebrae
shocked, shorn, subverted
from it’s makers intention),
a push, a rise
with little fluidity; but purpose
catches hold: You fuck,
I will bend you today;
I will carve my name
into the sides of days
into the teeth of beggers
into the cocks of grayhounds,
and cunts of fire;
I will piss my dreams
into the toilet of life
and get on with it.

The only affirmation I need
is the one I got up with:
You’re up you bastard,
whatareyagonnado?
to serve
a power
you know
nothing of.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1998

RECONNECTIONS, CIRCUMVENTIONS, CUT & PASTE

2009-06-26T06:05:00.000-07:00

There’s a scar running
from my right ankle to my right testicle
where my right vein used to be; it must have been a long one.
The surgeons lifted it during the quadruple; they also heisted
a mammary vein, which you can’t see, and reconnected my heart
to keep the pump pumping.
There have been other physical alterations: teeth yanked,
gums opened and scraped to the bone; fingers crooked and bent
from sugar blues and four black gangerous toes pulled and flushed
down a toilet and into the sea for fish to eat.
There was a delicious agony in all that
like a love affair
gone bad,
repeatedly.
Yet this was better: freshly laundered sheets
for your asshole to sweat through; Gods vein of mercy,
morphine, to fondle the few remaining body parts left, and ease
the imaginative stew to percolate and simmer. You are leaving
the world in small quantities, and what’s left
is less functional,
less dangerous,
less important,
but no less real...
for you that is.

Kat, my wife, came near
to see what was up
with the writing.
Very depressing, I said.
At least you’re able to get it out, she said.
Not really, I said, but I’d rather be banging the typer
than taking this shit out on you.
Good idea, she said, I’m feeling blue, too, baby...and I might
be able to kill you, especially after you put my tit through this ringer, and,
in the shape you’re in, that shouldn’t be too hard...size
is no big deal, know what I mean?
Yeah, indeed I do, I said, and lifted her shirt.
Her auburn nipple was as close as pleasure dared to come
these days, and I simply put my mouth around her dark brown pinkish wonderful aureole and nursed.
She murmured slightly.
Baby, she said, Seinfeld is on at 9.
Huh, I said, I thought the murmuring was for me.
Just thinking, she said,
don’t take it personally.
No, I said,
of course not.

There is really only one way to end this day...or poem
for that matter...quietly,
very very quietly.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1996

WITHOUT DANGER

2009-06-25T05:19:00.000-07:00

There is something to be said about dying early
with some teeth left in your head, heart,
maybe soul.
Before the style, the risks,
and the ventriloquist,
who shucked pain like so many vibrant husks,
sheds you, too. Memories are saccharine; letters,
humbled by twenty years, are yellowed signposts
of genital decay, signaling fear...and worse:
obedience.
Without bluff, without balls, without danger
is defeat.
Boring, moronic, mind-numbing
day to day capitulation to instinct leashed
like a trained seal waiting
to get fed.

ARF, ARF, ARF.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1997

THE DAYS RUN FASTER THAN THE WAILING WIND

2009-06-24T06:09:00.000-07:00

This terrifies me: the sunflower
as geometry; wind twisting inside my skull, a mad orphan
of light; oceans salt thick and ugly; young children
praying; the dry lick
of evenings; walking
on the wrong side; pellets of fear,
like mouse droppings, ricocheting
off gut walls; the cat approaching
forgiveness; mouth cotton numb;
speech that punishes silence;
sticks with flesh and ashen hues;
rides into a moonlight shot
with blood yoke and song;
river moss and mud and marsh
and mules that cannot go another step,
slag heaped and sullen in a winter sun;
honesty among intimates; innocent scavengers
picking at the end of my days and ways;

and where will I go
when this living stops?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1998

A CHRISTMAS GREETING TO MY FELLOW HUMANS

2009-06-23T05:49:00.000-07:00

There are those
who always seem
to be happy; never knowing
accidents of any kind.
They have been winners
at genetic roulette, and
hardly ate a bone cooked
more than once. Usually
they smile, if not laugh
at the postman’s legs,
on the street, in supermarkets
only if in the company of others.
Perhaps they were prepared well
for life’s catastrophes, or have a faith
that transcends them. I’ve never seen them
in clinics, in gin
or Medicaid mills,
foraging for food
thrown out, for money disappeared
from a hole in the pocket
or head; stolen
without warning
or retribution.
Usually these aren’t the ones whose bodies are at war
against themselves: acne, tumors, diverticulitis,
dementia, boils, warts, madness; their lives aren’t waged
against landlords, and bosses, and politicians
who possess the trait that all men of power do: indifference.

I’ve not drank, nor written a poem, in ten years.
I’ve not been missed. The word has mattered
to those that own the presses. Tribal chiefs
and The Medicis have understood this well. Those writing
control only their demons; they only matter
if lucky, as commodity.

I’ve just come from the supermarket. I do not need
a basket. They watch me, as I watch them.
I saw a couple holding hands as they debated
salsa: too hot for him, too mild for her.
He whispered something in her ear, and they laughed.
She leaned in closer, and rested her head
on his shoulder. I moved
on.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1995

MY BODY IS BLOATED

2009-06-22T05:33:00.000-07:00

with poems
lately...as well as
deep angry pustules
that litter my back.
For the last three years
I had to squeeze one
just to get a poem out.
Now,
all I have to do
is breath.

What a lucky, lucky man
I am.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1981

ONE FOR NANCY

2009-06-21T05:51:00.000-07:00

Nancy says
shes on top
of the drug problem.
That’s made 5 Columbians
with stiff dicks
very happy.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1982

O SOLO MIO

2009-06-20T05:48:00.001-07:00

for Clara Gualtieri

My spleen; my liver; my heart; my lungs;
my cock; my cunt; my balls; my eggs;
my eyes; my ears; my tongue; my teeth;
my arms; my legs; my toes; my fingers;
my car; my truck; my brain; my ideas;
my blood; my viscera; my jism; my cum;
my tits; my milk; my house; my oven;
my pots; my pans; my money; my money;
my money; my stocks; my bonds; my property;
my feelings; my shirts; my pants; my panties;
my briefs; my socks; my leggings; my shoes;
my desires; my fears; my purpose; my mucus;
my thoughts; my body; my roots;
my success...

my failures,
however,
are yours
and yours alone
for not loving enough
what is mine.

Bow wow, bow wow, bow wow.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1981

CAUTION

2009-06-19T05:47:00.000-07:00

Beware the hands
that are calloused
by self-love and who offer
only their fingers to shake.
Beware the ring
that owns the circle; beware
the love that holds
the ring. Beware the skin
that is smooth inside
and out; flowers
without roots. Watch
for sane people who dizzily boast
of their craziness. Avoid being
too long with somebody who is not here
today. This is a time
where bored men are driven
to the short stroke; tired
from the prom
from the promise
from what is
not.
It is a good time
to sleep. To forget
the tricks of history;
to settle
to hold on
to quietly die
while business slaps its thighs
in unison. Be careful
around police
on strike, they will kill
like you or me. Never trust religion
worn around the neck--
God never intended
to get paid.

Beware for what you think
is true
only now
and not then
and not later.

And when it’s time
the breezes will come,
as they always have,
without any help from you.
If
they be soft and warm
consider yourself
lucky,
because someone,
something,
had the sense
to make a liar
out of all
of us.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1977

DETECTIVE JOE FRIDAY

2009-06-18T06:20:00.000-07:00

it was winter
and distances
that kept us together,
in the cold and opague night,
dreaming of each others bodies
and the slow restlessness
of spring;

spring
with no youth
attached
and dense mists
covering the space
where the afternoon was; two bodies
somewhere near,
afraid of the yellow fog.

II

can you
understand? that I need people
and poetry--all things
that intrude? can you?
understand? what I don't
tell you?

morning
mechanics
rise
like a sleepwalker
to decay a little more.
meticulously folding my dreams
and romance into a locked drawer
fearful they spill into hands already
wet with nightmares.

III

a song sung in hot summer
confuses the chill that winter
predicts and dismisses what's between:
a waste
of words.
stopping as if to look
with disgust (even hatred!)
at myself and you!
for believing
all the wrong reasons.

deadly,
silent
walls, empty
hands without
hands, or even
rings, and the confusing
one-sided glass add
to time's disorder
which is also
yours.
and now frost
inhabits a mouth
which once
lured bees.
I've become afraid
of mysteries
too easily solved.
I watch it grow dark
around you and barely notice
the sun's replacement; only
the word, "love" twisting,
like a political promise, hardly
heard in the dusty white night.
"love,"
you said,
"me," (and took a step
backward; away
from the light, away
from the love.) no step
can trace this insane dance;

there isn't even a dance.

(a familiar state
this aloneness, in which everything
is fuckable; (a curse
this emotion.)

alone, now,
knowing that somewhere,
out there,
struggles are going on:
the sun's shove;
the surf's assault;
even the air pushing
against my skin--and I think:
life,
a sack of eggs
dropping
ever
so
slowly.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1974

LOGIC

2009-06-17T05:45:00.000-07:00

She was old,
and her vast
cunt smelled.
But I was a quick
shooter. Besides,
her ass & legs
fucked history
where it breathed.

How old are you?
she asked.
Which part?
I replied.

Two lovers,
plotting.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1978

ONE FOR JOHN

2009-06-15T05:43:00.000-07:00

John Wayne,
doctors said,
is in stable condition today
after having everything
from the neck down
removed.
He’ll be given,
as protective measure,
a football helmet
upon his release
next week.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1976

YOU MIGHT THINK...

2009-06-14T08:17:00.000-07:00

that I’ve learned something---
after putting Porches
with Volkswagen souls, silk
suits and ties and Egyptian cotton shirts,
cashmere socks, friends, promises,
ghosts, Kleenex hours
as thick as bouillabaisse
in my arm---
I would have come away
wiser.

But here I am
still loving
with my dick
still sucking
the needle
replaced with the green tit
of a Heineken bottle backed
by scotch, tequila and later
cognac; a head full of lush
looking up, yeah
it’s time, finally
time to go and not
a minute too soon;
stumbling into Saturday night’s morning;
a route home; how much
to tip; are my cells saturated
enough; is there anybody
to go home with; anybody
who might hear the whisper
of desperation too?
Last Call, oh
shit, it’s
time.

They come slower
and not as sure
they do. Struggling to sip
radiator fluid; nickel lives
rusted by 10 cent memories
of making it. Women
and money
like horse shit. Pockets thick
for spending. Cars loaded
with laughter speeding crazy
towardsIdon’tgiveashitwhere,
underthetable, whenhe’snothome,
aslongasit’sgood, you know
it’sgottabegood.

You might think
that after the streets
and rooftops; eager
to please 20 year olds,
and more eager 40 year olds,
whiteandblackandbrownandyellow
with thighs like mars bars;
the nights of cancer,
and suicide days; three quick holes
in the chest; more scared
I’d have to do this again.
But then the nights that sweat
energy of snapping our fingers
knowing we’d found it,
for a second, privileged,
above the cut,
not even angry,
the gut filled, the eye
frozen, the brain connecting,
you might think
I’d had enough. Wrong,
and right, right
and wrong;
nana nana nananananana;
a kid, huh,

with orange-red cheeks
big as basketballs;
wanting the sugar;
wanting the rush; wanting
to eat it all...
and that would not be enough
nothing
would not be enough.

You might think
the letter that God sent
would have something more
than a rent due notice;
I’m daring you,
I’m double daring you:
your mother’s Tralala;
you suck wind and dress funny.
Well, c’mon.
You know where the fuck I am.
This all wouldn’t matter
if you didn’t.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1975

ONE FOR SAMMY

2009-06-13T05:48:00.000-07:00

Tell them Sammy,
tell those know nothing scrunched faced motherfuckers
who envy your rings
your women
your religion
your one eye
your chalkiness....tell them
about your situation----
like coming up
with your weekly
vig payment.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1975

ONE FOR THE FRENCH

2009-06-12T05:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday
I threw my nuts
overboard.

C’est le guerre.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1975

ONE FOR JOE CONRAD

2009-06-11T05:06:00.001-07:00

By Jove!
I’ve got a hard-on!
Perhaps I should stick it
into the heart
of the first cunt I see.

Perhaps not...

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1975

CUPS & STRING

2009-06-10T05:35:00.000-07:00

phones will be out
3-6 weeks: tough
to communicate
face to face.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1975

HER 33rd.

2009-06-09T04:58:00.000-07:00

everything comes
in threes: three openings
to enter
and exit; three loves
to compare
and contrast with; three lusts
that conflict
and confuse
us.
in your own dark wood now
at 33, you should know
that heaven
and hell
is bullshit
anyway.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1976

I EAT LIKE A PIG

2009-06-08T06:04:00.000-07:00

My mouth sloppy
from fried grease.
My hands are littered
by cheap white paper napkins
that were ripped and beaten
by French fries' film.
I mix potatos
and ice cream.
I chew beef
and bean sprouts.
I am worried
about premature
graying.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1979

NEW AGE

2009-06-07T08:29:00.000-07:00

"Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow"...

again The Moonglows
and Frankie Lymon playin
for small change
while the fat boys
work off another
quick one; the scorched hand
does not remember. a new
age. history has taught us
nothing--nothing that fools
can use.
do ya think
it's too short? huh?
whatja say?
too short, I said, is it?
wait a second, it's almost over.
hey, this is important, that's a fucking soap opera, this is everything. can't ya shut it off?
I can't; I'm in the middle of a, a, a,
feeling; way don't ya go into the bathroom and yank it--
it'll get longer.

your move.
once made made--
remember, no bullshit, better think
wrong
from the start breathing
life into a smelly corpse--
how we intellectualize masturbation?
hand position?
direction?
aim?
stroke?
c'mon Hugh
they'll be other bodies
washed-out
of turrets
and university towers.
a scattered stream
of vomit
concealing the pure juice of senses
somehow gets lost; afraid
to be uncovered like the shivering skeletons
of thought, a blood-jet
splattering
(upon) the white light of memory
or what was thought
as desire.

turn-out
the suns' soft sell
of a darker shadow puts to sleep
loves' secrets giving us the eel
of night to catch. as whores flash
from their turnstile life
what dribbles down
their muscular leg
while we,
calm as cow,
cud the bilious stew
of imagination.

strangely
we gain
in the loss
any loss
that leaves us somewhere
where we weren't; not exactly there
but a point (rusted
in the mother's womb) neither
right or left
just over
a notch.

bat figures fly
from mouths that oil
their words; actions
defined as black or white slip
in a slate-colored world.
Bela, Bela,
how could you do that?
to poor Renfield?
Bela, his spiders, he loves
his spiders so, how could you?
What are ya talkin bout, you idiot? Haven't you ever taken
abnormal psych?

eyeballs bridging the seas
of asphalt I strain
to see what head
is being given; just a little
taste. while the man outside his chauffered mercedes 600,
on the lip of the road is harmlessy peeing
into the stares of chevys
holding back
a laugh.

lord
& taylor
nakedness.

a contusion arching,
like some taunt bow, our backs
while the arrow is always
us. we aim, a convulsion
of flesh, toward institutionalized steel
of tradition hitting
with a syrupy cry
like he's going
into the world
for the first time.

"Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow"...

I hear approaching footsteps
and am afraid they are coming to my room;
(I do not want to be bothered)
(I long
for company.)

my mark, under
my boot, a lucky
strike.

skidmore girls
benson hedges mick
jaggar, letter stuffed with numerical
love leaves falling
like dandruff.

I see the end (of things)
too quickly and am nervous
that they will die
before I do
and I'll
have to fix them.

our poets contained
on plastic circles that sell;
a faith
in shadows
and sunglasses; a look
towards the sheeted mirror.
even a river has a tendency to turn
on itself; a damp
drizzly november bordering
an arizona dryness
and you, trying to fuck
with the souls' thermostat.

"Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow"...

an army of gerontions
in patchwork denims hugging
what history has left blank.
and memory fondling
subtle confusions; a staged
decadence cascading
crystal light on washed-out dungerees; premeditative
wear; an exercise
in delineation. our fears
left us anesthetized, our courage
bottled-up or shot-up;
we
are not you;
you
are the dying parts
of me; die
already, won't you die
for me? (I'm you kid, you're supposed to do anything for me)
(you did in my dreams)--a generation
slain in slumber.

I'dgiveyaanythingIgotforlittlepieceofmind.
ass, John, that's it,
isn't it? ass, ya know,
comfort, mama,
ya know, c'mon
ya know.

Hey Thomas,
imagination killeth,
not just letters.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1978

A HEART, LIKE RAW, LIKE BLOOD, LIKE SCARFACE, LIKE VALENTINE'S DAY

2009-06-06T05:48:00.000-07:00

1977, 250 lb. weightlifting nazi, kills 6 today,
including himself, (why not?) 4 heads
get blown off in indiana, wig
also gets blown off but not head,
(vanity stays intact.) a man
is made to eat a shotgun in cincy,
(the shotgun gets tricked.) a child
greets life in brooklyn by getting raped,
beaten, and thrown off a roof,
(what else is new?)
and I
didn't receive one goddamn card today,
not one,
either they are getting smart,
or my mailman is jealous.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1977

NOT A MINUTE LATE

2009-06-05T05:01:00.000-07:00

it is 12:37 p.m.
on a hot friday.
I will get up at 1.
why
I don't know,
except that exactness
always obsessed me.
usually you can find me
with one cigarette
and one match;
one friend
or none;
one love
or absence. only
the complexity of my miserable
but beautiful soul
hiding
beneath the sweated sheets
appreciates
the time
I've given it.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1978

THE GOOD EYE

2009-06-04T04:53:00.000-07:00

for Chris Mooney

I am lucky
to sometimes see,
to sometimes taste
sweet syrupy honey
in the folds
of a spoon;
flesh or steel
matters less
and less.
I am young enough
not to be completely
hammered in. There’s that blow
between rounds. And
they can’t stop it.
My manager died,
I’ve made them
my trainers. My opponent
is kicking my ass
around the ring. I wink
at the part of him
that’s covered by stunning silk;
a right whooshes past
like underground train suction;
punches have a cauliflower sound.
I am not there.
I’m with a woman
who likes her men beaten
a little
around the edges, just a bit
spent. I’m ranked always,
but never dangerous
they figure. I never win
or lose officially; each fight
carried over. I fight
from a sense of defeat.
For some reason
they have always given me
the biggest and meanest
to try and teach me
lessons.
Tomorrow
there’s a poem I’ve been meanin’
to write, I say
in the clinches.
A poem, a poem,
you freak, a goddamn
poem you fuckhead shithead
freak cocksucker creep
I’m gonna rip your fuckin’ heart out;
I’m gonna make you pee blood,
faggot.
Hey,
that ain’t bad,
I’m gonna put that in;
like the rhythm; yeah,
that’s a good one.

The eye a slit
puffed with economics
and dumb stupid idiotic
mind-numbing jobs; jobs,
that are all, finally
dumb. Swollen, no matter
what you do, with wars
of marsh rats. Tigers
sold on forty-deuce glowing
with the urgency of Christ
killing off the right ones always
the right ones; a plan
so intricate we can’t see it,
they say. They had
too much time to themselves
to steal and secure; that part
is over. Slugs,
without lust, without song,
without fever; as loving as cancer
and not as good.

My eye is diseased, swollen
but never shut. And I
love it. I love it
when I slip it past em,
when I do it anyway.
He did hurt me,
especially in the 21st., 22nd.,
and 23rd. round.
I got some licks in
in the 24th. And am
still here in my own dark wood 30th.
He can’t understand why
the 31st. don’t mean shit
to me. He tries harder
for the big toe tag. From
the floor, swinging
for the bleachers; a tape measure
job. Hell,
I have always loved to fight someone
who telegraphs his shots.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1978

POEM

2009-06-03T05:28:00.000-07:00

hairy armpits, small
breasts, catholic
nipples, a thick
bush--

we made it
somewhere around
6 a.m.,
moist, dark, drunk--
a reconciliation
of sorts.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1978

A HOT BATH, MAHLER, AND CHIVAS

2009-06-02T04:39:00.001-07:00

my balls ache.
after 6 months
the sac drops
into the mouth
of memories. Ah,
what the Hell...
a hot bath, some
scotch and music
to soothe
the hunchbacked day.
I look at it
bobbing
up
and
down,
and place my hand
gently
around the smooth
wet flesh, not quite
believing it attached;
not quite understanding
who it is
that
owns it.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1977

A STRANGE LOFT, WOMAN, AND VACANT CAT

2009-06-01T05:40:00.000-07:00

for Ruth, Jackson's last whore

roaches in the cat box--
no cat--bathroom tiles
etched with pubic hairs
closer to my face
than where the owner slept
peacefully.
I was hoping
that the elimination
of my wastes
would take longer--
I had nothing much
to do that day
--but the espresso,
heat, and a strange bed
fired it out
like piss.

there I was, 14th Street,
noon, blazing sun,
not a tree for miles
looking for air-
conditioning and American
coffee.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1978