I COME BEARING GIFTS

I bring you all my shit
and put it in your hands:
a hundred years of shards,
a library full
of tears, laughter
the wind catches
on its breath; these
are pedestrian
I know, but they're
just the foot soldiers.
Here's Johnny Too Bad
by Taj,By the Rivers
of Babylon, by Jimmy C;
Crime & Punishment,
which we've cultivated,
& The Ivy Crown,
which we haven't.
Miles
of music subversive,
and as dangerous
as Botticelli's gold
fuck rays streaming
to the virgin's womb;
vagabond's ramblings
& scrambled eggs
in forsaken diners,
thick slabs of bacon,
coffee hot enough
to know your tongue's there.
I give you old smelly corpses
of uselessness; dreams
brokered by cruelty; a city
of maybes...

My Medea,
I come to you knowing
I must be killed...
but not yet,
baby.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

BORN WHITE

I was crazy
but never worried
about being stopped
or frisked or shot
dead by the boys
in blue when nuzzling
a girl at two or three
in the morning
or pretending
I was tough
with a Coney Island crew.
Even when
I was carrying
reefer or dope
on a black block
I was more afraid
of being ripped-off
then shot by a white cop, who,
was more afraid than I was.
I had ownership
of the country
& the world.
To me
it was a bad break
to be born black;
it allowed me
to steal
their music,
their colors,
their magic and
their pain. I took
what served me
with both hands
& gave them
lip service
or silence.
I did with them
only what I wanted,
which amounted to
a spectator sport.

Nakedness needs
to be bled; the cut
needs prayer.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016