WE AIN'T SO TOUGH

We like to think
we can fade anything.
Nothing's
too difficult
for us
humans
to conceive of
or do.
Perhaps?...

I prefer
the wolf
trapped
in steel
& chews
his foot off
without asking
for sympathy
or Zoloft;
or a three-legged
dog jogging; or
a wordless sparrow
in the Hawk's eye
with clipped wing
& a bread crumb
happy in the sun.
I've not seen
a mean mother elephant
nuzzling a dumb calf
or a lionness humiliate
her cub.
No flower I know
has hid
from the sun;
or a beetle
refuse dung.

We have too much
& so too little.
The eye
on the pyramid's dollar
blind and baffled
by good fortune.
It seems we've got
Nature's sequence
wrong. All
wrong.
Our memorial
to our wars
is above ground
not under it.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

ONE FOR THE DEAD...AND SOON TO BE DEAD

The 9/11 World Trade Center
theme park
opened
for business
last week.
Thrills, chills
and death-defying skills
wrapped in our collective hearts
are there
for all
to frolic in
for 24 bucks a pop:
Disney does death.

You too can experience
a busted-up fire truck,
bicycles driven by ash,
a million shades of blue,
a wall full of faces
lonely for a date,
a Y beam, and X beam,
a sun beam,
you can meditate,
concentrate,
integrate,
facilitate,
vacillate,
prognosticate,
and, yes,
masturbate
to visions
of your own
choosing
providing,
of course,
the choice
was chosen
by holocaust
survivors.

On separate screens
you can experience
the adrenaline rush
of school kids
being hunted down
and shot,
veterans
lined up for years
waiting
for an aspirin,
or sleeping under
a freeway
near you--google maps
will do this for free.

Finally,
before you take the kids home,
to that fattened blob of a town
in one of America's sturdy out lands
clutching a 32 ounce soda,
you can simulate a fall
from the 104 floor
through make believe smoke
and make believe fire
& flames,
grasping for arms,
or fingers,
or hair,
through the air,
lungs collapsing,
eyes going blind,
& splatter
into a stain
on the sidewalk below
as a camera snaps
and a picture
of nothing
is produced
that you carry back
to the other fat-calved
football fans
somewhere else.

The gift shop
is to your right.
Step lively.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014