BECAUSE THERE IS SO MUCH BEAUTY

that only torture brings out,
I've made sure
to have stockpiled
enough pain annuities
to last a lifetime.
My memory bank
welcomes the lash
& the leash
of new subscribers,
but should I see
a masochistic downturn
I simply tune in
to my favorite stations
and taste the blood
of a finely aged betrayal.

Johnny Keats
waxing poetic
on a Grecian Urn
shook the Brooklyn
off its perch
and into the steely crabgrass
where the hanging-judge
and the lotus-eater
hold court.

To all those
who've hurt or crippled me,
I cannot thank you enough.
To all those
who've fooled or betrayed me,
my hat is off to you;
you have lived far past
your expiration date,
but torture me still.
You've birthed this poem
and those which came before
and those which come after.
It's a signless road,
but well-traveled.
I can find it in the dark.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

YOU SLIP THE NEEDLE

in the vein
like you're getting
into an old pair of slippers
only to find it collapsed
and you searching
for a new one--
what a drag!
You've worked so hard,
been through so much,
only to be betrayed
by your own damn body
and its secret
expiration date.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

MY BODY

has gotten
too old
for my brain;
it fucks
with my
imagination
of what
can be done
& who
it can be done
with.
If you want
to understand
betrayal
start
with yourself.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

A HIATUS

For B.L. mainly

I'm going to try and take a little break from posting in order to finish the novel I'm working on. I'm close, but need to take the energy I use for this, and put it into that. And while it's true that the poem and the novel are one, still, I find that working on one can water down the other. I would think that three to six months sounds about right.

I'm going to leave you with a quote by a friend, Jamieson, and her husband, Simon.

"To love is to give what one does not have and to receive that over which one has no power. To love is to freely negate the stubbornness that is the self and to live in loyalty to an affirmation that can dissolve like morning mist with the first experience of betrayal."
--Simon Critchley and Jamieson Webster--
"Stay, Illusion"