AFTER THE IDEA HITS,

but before laying it down--
before putting pen to paper,
before putting fingers to keyboard,
before putting mouth to mic,
I must stop
to procrastinate.
I could tug
on my balls,
dig in
a little;
the decision hanging
in the balance--
type it?
scribble it?
breathe
into this smartphone?
or maybe take a shit?
brew a cup of tea?
or coffee?
start a fight
with dead people?
or look for butterflies
in my fist?
maybe stringing up
a rope?...

You see
a poem
has an urgency
I want to control
because it feels so good
and comes
so infrequently
I want to punish it
for being so stingy
while making love to it
for being so goddamned sexy.

The risk, of course,
is having them die
before they fully show,
but who said
being a hedonist
was ever easy.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

MARILYN,

her corpse turning 90
today, celebrates all
who whacked-off to her
in their dreams
& her solitude.

And I'm being picked-up
& driven, by a new squeeze,
to shoot craps
near the Atlantic
City boardwalk.

Win or lose
it will be
a better day
for me
for sure.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

SHE PLEASURES HERSELF

with a centipede
like apparatus;
little white rubber nubs
juts from the
two foot shaft
penetrating her
unlatched body.
In & out,
in & out,
slowly
quickly
slowly
slide
the head
the heart
the cock
side
to
side.
Nibbling
outside
now
inside
now
both
while her mind
conjures
a mysterious
& delicious brew
of desires.

She wants
to be taken
hard,
I think.
Her life
has not
been charitable.
She needs pain,
more than most,
& responds
to pain
more than most.
A pain
that was there
waiting
for her,
long before
words
made meaning
irrelevant.
Science
has sustained her;
measured her;
doled her out
in units;
she lives in a world
brokered by
mathematics.
She trusts
no one;
believes
everyone.
Her center
carries a grief
that rides
a deep & abiding
wind; it shakes
the branches
that gives her
balance.

She had thought
she knew
loneliness
until
she met
me.

She is ready
to love. And
so am I.
We know how
at the edge
of a ripple
lies a wake.

Both of us
will dine alone
tonight.
It's why
we're so, so
ravenous.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015