RAVENESQUE

Dark & dreary
bleak & black
chilled & drizzly,
we humped along Park
downtown & across
the bridge to score
some tea & time
& heat & eats
& maybe,
just maybe, a little sex
on our kid's break
from whatever smacked
of responsibility.
Any day, really, was a good day
for pot. But especially days
like this as the ice rain ticked
along the windows
& pinged & ponged on the roof
while a young friend,
but old lover leaned
past my shadow & into the folds
of our laughter as the bridge
& her cables rose before us &
the fog seeping into the ground.

Some days
are made for pot,
& some days for dope.
Rare are the days
that give coke a good name,
but anyday, everyday,
is an alcohol delight
if the saloon is dark
& those who bottom there
know you well enough
to leave you be.

We got out
into the mist
& Amy paid him.
There was a skinny Rican
we knew selling
Panamanian Red
by Hoyt & Bergen:
good count for the price,
& rich sweet earth tasting
pot. But we still needed
to throw a few sevens: he
had to be there; the reefer
had to be there; & a cab
or car service needed to drift by
or be found. Everything in this life
is a matter of timing. Edgar's was piss-poor
and he paid dearly; that day
ours was better. How was yours today?
How has your life gone?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

2017 NEEDN'T HURRY ON MY ACCOUNT

Soon enough
I'll be shrunken
& bloodless...
or ash--
if I get lucky.
Better people than I
have made the journey.
I'm Ozymandias's
orphaned son
up to my balls
in sand: blank,
pitiless, lost
as I make my way
to the Bronx today
for a workshop
for jailbirds.

But at the stroke
of midnight
the raven will flutter
off Edgar's shoulder;
virginities will fall;
some will bleed,
others have bled,
amateurs will vomit
amid the horns, the revelers
the merry-makers; empires
will give themselves over
to shadows; girls will weep
& boys will whoop
their manhood to fathers
who are no longer there,
who followed their inner defaults:
money or fame or power.

And I'll be watching
it all play out.
I'll be with Ralph
& Alice & Norton & Trixie
in a Brooklyn tenement
in Bensonhurst.
Time does not age.
It clicks
endlessly.
Might as well
have a laugh.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

EVERY NIGHT IS DOPE NIGHT

Edgar waits
pen in hand
for his little girls
to visit
bringing
China White.
He sits
next to
a raven colored
sax player
who's trying
not to vomit.

He scribbles
between the cramps.
They hope
they trickle in
before the second set.
Everything's green
in this bucket
of blood
saloon.

Outside
it's snowing.
A white carpet
lays between
uptown &
downtown
on the south side
of heaven,
one stop
from Hell.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016