OUT OF IT

You need a day
like I had today:
fucked-up
and feelin fine;
free from my history
and those dark voices
that whisper & tongue
your inner ear.

Not a wink of sleep
and a few extra pills
for all the pain
real & imagined,
ingrained in a cycle
of anticipation,
did the job
of snatching from the jaws
of gods and demons
billows & breath
as a fog disappeared
into the earth.

There is that space
that waits for you.
Listen for it.
Trust it.
It is the only place
they can't take from you--
and they never could.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

YES MOMMY, OF COURSE, DADDY

always followed
by the silent
Fuck You
writ large
or small
once the lights
dimmed, the doors
closed, the mice
scurry and shadows
leave behind fears
like droppings
and your demons
romp.
Get out
the knife,
cut along
the perforation;
invert
the spike,
jiggle the vein,
ride the white horse,
purge the loving dinner,
slip your panties
off those frozen ankles.

How good
being bad
feels.

The gasoline
smells so good
each time
I fill the tank.
Almost as good
as the mimeograph
machine smelled
as I printed copies
of "Ode On A Grecian Urn"
for Miss Edelman's class
on a hot and pregnant day
sixty years ago
tomorrow imagining
my fingers fingering
her breast, my mouth
in her ear,
the ink still wet,
the pages moist,
I wept from excitement.

I sat next to
an old colored woman
on the crosstown bus.
She'd sowed a mean leopard print
onto her denim shirt
and had a leopard hat on her Sunday morning perm,
red nails, buffed, and red lipstick sitting proud
on her lips, I inhaled her
renegade blues walking up and down the aisle.
A hard-headed lover, and head turner,
stubborn, opinionated,
twisted with abandon,
we knew what stop
to get off
and off
we got.

Mommy,
I said.
Yes, Daddy,
whatchowantsugar?
Your sweet self,
I replied,
Come and get it.
The demons stood back
and let me go get near.

It was only Wednesday;
and I'm off tomorrow.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

A POEM TO ALL MY ALCOHOLIC AND DRUG ADDICTED BRETHREN

For MCM: "Go on with your terrible self."


There is such a thing
as suffering
magnificently,
nakedly,
monstrously,
alone.
Refusing
escape
or
medication.
Feeling
each bite,
each scrape,
each twist
of the razor
like wind.
You stare
into a black skull
doubting
who it is
that wishes
to punish
relentlessly
& perfectly
and wonder
how you
know yourself
so well
& can do
nothing
about it.
And manage
a grin
while kicking
yourself
to the
curb.
There is much
beauty in feeling
anything
but neutral.
The car moves
through hills
that sing
& the moans
are only
harmony
sung in the sweet key
by street choirs
of mercy.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015