ROMANCE

To spend Christmas Eve
at Nathan's
in Coney Island
eating a hot dog,
while the rain
whips up mischief
& magic
is about as romantic
as it gets.

It will be an empty
shelter for a few
figures huddled
in an embrace
of whispers,
mustard biting
their lips, ketchup
staining their french fried fingers.

A clatter
of trains
at the end
of their lines
huffing
into terminals
as useless as prayers
offered up to love
proffered for the sea
slapping against the darkness
a few steps from civilization.

I will have worked
a half day, trying
to unlock the gates
swinging against the souls
smashed against odds
they inherited. I've come
from the same asylum
and wrap myself in our disease.

Another frank? I ask.
My hands grip a bill
& I fish it out.
We are a long way from heaven,
but a very long way from hell.

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