THIS THEY KNOW:

For Jason D.

there's always
always always
a game on.
It's a "lock."
They sit back
and gorge
and kill
with impunity:
The NRA strafes you,
insurance companies
bet on suicides;
Big Pharma loads you up
with what kills you
& cures you
& blackouts you;
hospitals divide you
in sections until your heart
can't recognize your balls;
they mangle deer & refuse
to adopt doe';
they encourage the anguished,
the impoverished, the fenced-in,
locked-in locked-up locked down
to believe in miracles
like they're winning tonight,
beating the spread,
going against all odds
because The Knicks are getting 5 tonight
and playing in The Garden against lowly Sacremento
and the Sixers are plus one against Boston at home,
and Sugar Ray is fighting Sugar Free while Sugar's pussy is open to the winner;
and, hey, first pitch is tomorrow and ya never know...

Tonight you have a dinner, a six pack,
and a game--that you know. You know
your bosses prick is back in his pants
and you're back in your crib...safe
at home. The rest of the world
can go and fuck itself--as it
usually does. But first
a message from our sponsor.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

AN OLD FASHIONED BARE KNUCKLES FISTFIGHT

with death
I've been having
from an early age.
I now look forward
to that minute's rest
between rounds.
He grins at me
& I grin back.
I know
he will take me
out
eventually
but not before
I bloody him some more.
Yes,
he will get me,
but when he does
there'll be much less
of me
to take.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

NATURE

I'm a loner
by nature,
no matter
how much
I secretly
(I think)
crave
company.

I've been asked
what I'm doing
Thanksgiving?
To each
I've replied:
I'm busy.
I'm not
busy.
I'm busy
trying
to be busy:
take myself
to a movie;
cook lamb stew;
stay alive
for a bit longer.
How I do that
is how I've done it
for sixty eight years:
bob & weave, avoid
being hit
too hard,
& playing
with my typer's keys.

So far
so good.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

THE BOXING MATCH

She rang my bell
& I met her downstairs.
It was a beautiful night
in Greenwich Village:
cool, a slight breeze & dry.
I left most of my week
upstairs
& brought what I hoped
was my best game
with me.
We danced
toward each other:
respectful, wary,
cautious, feeling
each other out.

Round one
was called
even.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

ONE FOR SMOKIN' JOE

I'd just heard
on World News
that Smokin' Joe
had entered
hospice.
Liver cancer
had taken 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
or natural decay,
For still others
a loss
of bravery
or spirit. Others feared
a drying up
of what made them
who they thought
they were
and took
an early
exit
like Ernie.
No matter,
how they bought it
it cost all of us
something--a diminishment
of a world
that has less and less
nourishment.
It is all TV now,
all scripted.
Fighters fight
once a year, maybe.
Poets are sucked
toward mics
& slams;
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,
I think of Smokin Joe,
and his last
few nights,
dining on morphine
instead of rare steak,
sipping 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