THE ALAMO

is now on 11th Street
& University Place,
in Greenwich Village.
I'm hunkered down
fending off
the onslaught.
Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna
can go and fuck himself
before I surrendeer.
I've got a sure as shit
straight-shooting musket
and my friend, Jim,
a Bowie knife. And balls,
I got them.
And so does enough coon-skin hats
to shoot the gold
from the capped-teeth of every Mexican
with bad breath and worse hygiene.
I played worse odds;
I grew-up in Brooklyn,
Coney Isand; the arcade
had the faces of mom & dad
plastered like wanted signs
down an illegitimate birth canal.
I could use a shot
of red-eye and a priest
to make fun of.
Because nobody will be left
to tell the tale
and history might think
we were fearless
instead of the foul-breathed
interlopers we are.
Uncle Walt
fucked us all.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

EVERY DAY, A HOT, STEAMY, CONEY ISLAND SUMMER

A carousel of women
encircle my brain;
some demur & lovely
in their tease
& some fierce & subversive,
all locked for a moment
in a terrible beauty
& embrace
of my choosing
what to remember
and why
to remember it.
Eyes wide
with panic--
or is it fear
--proudly prancing
their manes dancing to deities
of visions sung loudly
proclaiming my birth
and my lies.

Yes,
my memories
oiled up
& waiting
to be caught
in this arcade,
this hothouse
of simulacrums

while my mother hides
inside the ride,
clocking my action,
judging,
finger pointing,
wagging her stiletto like tongue,
cursing my infidelities now,
then, and those to come
to term
leaving her free
to pull the levers
and adjust.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019