SLAVE BLUES SERVED ON A THANKSGIVING SLAB

She absorbed
my breath
& odors
on a 270 pound frame;
she withstood
grunts
& false starts.
She felt the drip
of foul Vodka sweat
& a thick spaghetti strand
of mouth drool
pooling around her nipple.
Somewhere
far off
Sonny Boy sang
the blues
of men; his harp
pumped blood red
trapped
by women
of color
by instinct;
she, too,
trapped
by young deliveries
& aborted safety
finds America
in God's trust
& open-school nights.
Everyday,
another stranger's flesh,
everyday,
the same dinner;
everyday,
a cold,
a missing tooth;
everyday,
a cheap cologne;
everyday,
a budget
breaks: speeding ticket,
toothache, a discharge.
I finally finish,
pull out
& fish
for green slime
in a pocket that hangs
with shame
over the chair.
Here, pleasure, thanks.
She tucks it
next to the pocket knife
& pepper spray.
Anytime, she says,
just call, you're
fun. I better run.
Have a good holiday.
You, too.
Sonny sang Bird.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

WHO KNOWS?

where they are?
or who they're with?
but I have
my suspicions:
one,
I'm pretty sure,
is fucking
a Cuban donkey
on some Havana side street;
another lies
under the sheets
in a psych unit
on a mountain side
in St. Moritz
waiting for a soulful skier
to fly onto her ward
& pirouette around her privates;
and still another,
lost in a memory dream
crosses a wet street
lifting her nun's robe
across her father's sternum.

Imagination dictates reality.

Most likely,
all the old ones,
and ones yet to come,
are battling
old battles.
Reminding themselves
they've misunderstood
themselves & their muses;
that ambivalence balanced
on the tip of her tit
gives her
enormous pleasure
and her sacrifices,
while tragic,
are trifles
as a white girl
sings Mississippi
juke joint blues.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

TO MAURITIUS...WITH LOVE

The blues
will tell
you...rock
'n roll
rockers
& punks
& hip
hop
artists,
the mad
painters
and soon
to be mad
civilians;
they will
shout,
scream
stomp
& stroll
down the
avenues
of the
dead;
Madagascar
will moan
& Arkansas
will sway
to the harps wind;
glass will hide
underneath a dream
of white while horses
run away
over the hills;
a deep bone ache
abides like a good
slide guitar
in a whiskey walk...
There is no better love
than the one that's
lost and
you can appear
like magic;
I've made it easy
for you:
I'm listed.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

SAM

http://bit.ly/28Trzb6

You were three
and I was nearly sixteen.
You had yet to find
misery, and I had found
too much of it.
You would, shortly, catch-up.

Then, in Bed-Stuy,
I saw Sam
live. My old man
took me. Lucky,
for me, he was
a black Jew
for his time.
Sam defined
my pain; he helped
get to my bones.

I've tried
to get to
yours.

I'm still
trying.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

THE ONLY THING THIS COUNTRY EVER BIRTHED

was the blues
and it was
a breeched birth at that.
"Kiss my ass,"
the crack
in the myth
announced
as they slid
& gripped
a lifetime
of pain
and song
hanging
from the
low limbs
of Poplar trees,
liquor laughter
& a sweet-milked tit
of secrecy.

Thank God Jews
ain't white.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016