OLD MEN WITH FISH EYES

The Chinese shack is closing;
ageless men stack beaten wooden chairs--
4's & 6's & 8's
--on table tops.
The skinny cook,
a #2 pencil of a man,
dribbles ash
as his ducks & chickens rumble
over the blade.
A nick of blood pools
into the soy. How many fingers
make a dish?

A lean Grayhound idles
at the curb's edge.
It waits, tail pipes
leaking dreams and
impossibilites.
Plastic red bags
holding oranges &
midnigt transgressions.
A fat blond whore,
mascara covering her fallen lash,
leans into her ride
rife with determination,
uncovers an almond cookie
and bites into its core;
stale, the sonofabitch
fucked me, she thinks.
It is only the first
of many lies
in the first of many hours
she will have to endure
before the first of many truths
becomes clear on Monday:
the crap tables are unforgiving
for hot women
of limited
resources.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

A BAD LUCK WOMAN

"Many a good man has been put under a bridge by a woman."
--Henry Chinaski

and she's all mine.
She was sick & suicidal
when she found me.
Just the kind I like.
I got her well
& she thanked me
by twisting the knife
into my innards
like she was twirling spaghetti.
She was Faye
& I was Jack
and this was Chinatown.

I couldn't quit her.
I couldn't quit her
before it cost me my job,
my money, my sanity and
nearly my pad--eviction notices
blanketed my door. Her absence
bothered me more than anything real could.
But I fought
the good fight
until her boil
became a pimple
that I sometimes,
even to this day,
absentmindedly rub.
My poems
as my life
doesn't concern her;
she cares
only if I still care
about her; only
in that regard
she's like
the rest of us.
I do not say
this is good
or bad but is...
until yesterday...

I saw that someone
from Canada peeked into my blog.
I had that feeling
that we all have
from time to time: anxious,
troubling and worse still,
curious.
I contacted the three readers
I have up there.
No, they said, not them.

Later in the a.m. I was woken
by a stiff white light
shining into my eyes & the outline
of a monster with a peaked hat.
There's a fire, the voice said,
sorry to wake you like this, but you have to get up and out; too much smoke in here.
I reached for my sweats and sweatshirt and slippers.
I walked out into my hall where six or seven other firemen were doing their thing.
I noticed my lock was busted, its entrails hanging by a thread.
Everything's OK now, one said, sorry about the lock, but we had to get in.
Yeah, I said, it's OK.

I was saving money to buy a comfortable chair and light stand so I could read and watch whatever.
That's all gone: 400 for a lock and house call; New York's a stick-up without a gun.
She probably knew that. I don't know how but
I know she knew
that.
Chop Suey anyone?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017