I WOULD MAKE FUN

of all things
I understood
little about--
take math
for example:
how 2 & 2
rarely made 4;
or take, for example
progressions; or take
for example
falling objects
at a certain speed;
or take love
for example,
and how it makes a mockery
of rationality.

It's you,
of course,
sitting
in a dim florescent corner,
far away
from the dogs
of Hell
barking
on a wet Surf Avenue street
in Brooklyn
on a cold Coney Island's evening
the only steam rising
from the fish counter
at Nathan's
waiting
for me
to ask you
to dance--
& me
never one to see
straight lines
or negotiate
distances,
stumbled
over a raised
threshold
of chance.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

WORKING OUT THE MATH

A hundred,
she said.
I had
a fifty.

Give an old man a break,
I said.
You don't look that old,
she replied.
Depends on the part,
I said.

How old?
Six nine.
That is old,
she said.
Wait,
it's comin for you, too.
I ain't makin thirty.
You'll make it...
or maybe get lucky.

You sound like my father--
75, but that's it.

C'mon, I said,
I need to get away; escape
for ten or fifteen minutes.


OK fifty for fifteen;
if nothin's happenin
you use your hand.

I'll say a prayer.

Say two.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016