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

MY JOB IS TO DREAM

words: bread & marbles,
apricots & onions,
moles & Minotaurs.
A shaft of light
dancing across minnows
wet with belief
& the smell
of religion.
Honeybees leaning along
the Queen's thigh
suckling a thickening liquid
sprung from the head of Zeus.
How else
to reconcile
the people
& the rocks?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

PARIS--WHEN IT SIZZLES

500 people last night
thought they were about
to enjoy themselves.
They were about to eat,
have a cocktail, smoke
a little weed
or a Gauloises & listen
to some twisty music.
They were ready to move
their bodies or minds or
both; have a taste of
some hip Cambodian fare,
enjoy the evening air
and savor a few days
of not working.
Little did they know
there's a caliphate
that frowns on such
hedonism, such frivolous
displays of sin. That
couldn't give a fuck
about iPhone51S (X or Y or Z)
or Facebook Likes
or Dislikes or fools
who are loving
the wrong god.
Paris prided itself
at being
at the vanguard
of thought & now
must think
& think again
about what they
think about...
& where they go,
& who they go with,
& who goes with them.
There is a hunger
for something pure:
something without
the fucked-up footprint
of man:
pure heroin;
pure pleasure;
pure food;
pure devotion.
I say this:
all interpretations
of god
needs to be
beheaded.

Where
can I get
a drink?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

THE GRACE OF THE GODS

The Gods gave me
a chronic illness
when eleven, before
I knew what a chronic illness
was. It scared the shit
outta me,
but fifty-six years later
I know
they also provided me
an ability to fuck with it,
and around it.
They gave me
a good ear,
a good eye,
& a mind
as jumbled
as the New York underground
to make sense
of the senseless.
They never gave me
patience, rationality,
stability; or the make-up
to work continuously
at one thing. It figures
I've little money,
little savings,
few coins of commerce,
except hope's pyrite:
getting discovered
by those who are able
to do something about it.
They've bestowed,
so far,
an unlimited supply
of words
and women
at the right time,
in the right place,
who treated me better
than I deserved.
More
than I deserved.
As if "deserve"
has anything
to do
with any
of us.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014