THERE IS NO GREATER THRILL

for a drug addict
than finding a drug
that you thought
had skipped out
on you.
Today,
it was a baby aspirin,
81 miligrams
in a tiny yellow Beyer dot
that helps thin my blood
in my heart holy clogged universe.
It was hiding
behind my coffee pot
and the thick black cord
connecting it
into the socket
behind that.
I had thought
I'd looked there yesterday
but musta missed it after
looking on the floor,
gas range and crack
between the icebox
& cleaning cabinet.
Shit, I'd said then,
and shook out
another pill.

It's not that I think
about medications
of all kinds
but obsess about them too.
If I wasn't taking drugs,
if I wasn't sick
who would I be?

Drugs have been my savior.
Drugs have been my confidant,
my muse, my benefactress and
my regulator; they've been the elixer
for this coward's blood:
They've gotten me up
in the morning & coaxed me into bed
at night giving me purpose
& dreams in this hellish game
of Truth or Consequences.

Soon, if I do everything right
or nothing at all, a door will open
on its own.
I've stashed Dramamine
every place I could think of
just in case.
Call me crazy
or call me Ishmael, I don't care.
But prepared
I will be.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

WHAT A SHAME

you love me
only from a distance.
Popping up
every so often
to feed
your being
by seeing
if I've fed
mine:
Either I love you
or no one; you exist
or forgotten; the poetry
itself matters
little.
But no matter.
I love
your love,
however warped
& twisted
it springs
from a tortuous sense
of self.
I do
however
abhor
the distance.
"Call me Ishmael,"
if you like.
My soul,
like his,
is damp
& drizzly
in my months
of constant November.
My exploration
of good
& evil
stops
with you.

You've digested
enough love
in your life.
The thought
of another
is nauseating.
Hell, indeed,
for you,
is other people.

I would give you
a wafer
& wine
instead, but that,
too, reeks
of flesh
& of that
you've eaten
your fill.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015