STEAM HEAT

A serpent's hiss
in the pipes
of my old brownstone
in Greenwich Village
on a freezing February--
only it's November
& we are caught
with our pants down
around the ankles,
& our balls,
made of brass,
clangs against a stiff cold radiator.

But the sound is enough
to alert the blood
that soon
very soon
it will morph
into a St. Bernard
carrying a keg of brandy
around its big furry neck,
as the steel warms.

And that hiss
is enough to settle you,
locate you,
like a bag of dope in your pocket
right after you cop,
the sickness at bay,
& you lean back into it
knowing it won't take long
to be enveloped
in that cocoon of warmth,
made well,
flushing the zero
from your bones--
not as lovely
as opium vapors
perhaps,
but a drift
by any other means
is still
a drift
into the
ease. You light
a cigarette,
put on some Monk,
and wait.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

YOU SEND ME

was Sam's crossover hit;
Monk was about to play
The Five Spot
for a month at a time.
The year was 1957
and I was about to crawl into a closet
with a ten year old girl.
I was friendly with her cousin
who lived around the corner from me
in Brooklyn. Ever play strip poker?
she asked. I can play Go Fish & War,
I countered. Ever see a girl's thing?
she asked. Just my mother's,
I countered. That doesn't count,
she said, you wanna see one?
I do. Yes I do.
OK, but you have to show me yours.
Alright...when?
Right now, stupid.
We were in her parent's living room
and the sun was pouring over us
lighting the sins we were surely
committing. But sin is delicious
anytime, anywhere, any age,
no matter if you know
what the hell you're doing
or not.
I slipped off my polo shirt
& squirmed out of my dungarees.
Now you, I said, holding fast
to my underwear.
She unbuttoned her white blouse
& took it off; nothing much
there. Stood up & wriggled
out of her blue & black checked skirt;
her Catholic school uniform
& placed herself before me.
Let's go into the closet, she said.
I didn't know precisely why
she said that, but I didn't argue
with experience.
She left the door open
and removed her panties.
I stared at it; it was
so smooth,
so contained,
I could have looked forever.
Now you, she said. Dazed,
I slipped them off
feeling the heat rise
in my neck & face.
What thrills I had
looking & touching & licking
trouble.

Somewhere Sam is sweetly
making love to a microphone;
& Monk, that lover
of the inexpressable note,
has heard what he alone
is able to hear & is dancing
around his keys.
In due time
I will find them both
and they will be part
of the whole, the whole
crazy thing
we call
memory.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

INSIDE A WARM GRAY COCOON

listening to Trane
& Monk's Ruby,
My Dear
on a rainy New York
afternoon bending
into evening
allowing myself
to be soothed
by a love
that straddles time
& its infirmities.

Within the moist breath
of a whisper
I feel the hand
of my green-eyed lover
nestle into the small of my back
amid the smells of candy apples
& cotton candy on a steamy
Coney Island night.
Every once in awhile
she leans in
& kisses my neck.
A delicious shiver
wriggles inside me.
Mmm, I go.
I dare to cup her breast.
She does not
deny me.
We are coming from,
& on our way to
salvation.

We've come through
the briars
of adolescence,
but hold a rose
in each of our hands,
a red rose soft
but indestructible.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

FIRSTS:

Asking Maxine out
for a hot fudge ice-cream sundae
when I was six and summoning up
the courage to take her hand
on our secret path back home;
swimming without my father's arms
underneath me & feeling the waters pull;
surfing on asphalt on a tar spun Brooklyn street,
the training wheels off
with only my own power & balance to guide me;
a hardball sliding into my Rawlings oiled glove
and hitting a liquid smart drive on the fat of the bat;
having courage in the darkness
& the high spun arc of magisterial wide screen technicolor
coming on at once like LSD kid style; melted popcorn
oozing between my fingers licking the tips;
the first time my dick moved straight up
all by itself;
the first time I mastered making a bridge
so the pool cue slid easily between my fingers;
the first time the ball touched nothing
but twine and the swoosh it made;
the first touch of silk;
or the smell of my dog wet
from the spring rains;
the first time I saw Corinne
and moved toward her without
knowing why; the first smell
from a mimeograph machine or
gasoline pump, paper solvent
or horse manure or man sweat
after a summer's football game
on the beach; the first pull
on a stick of reefer or opium pipe
and the snake that slithered up
my spine and around my shoulders
and up into my brain;
the first time I realized Coltrane
or Monk or Miles or Billie or Nina;
the first time I knew I really existed
and found the keys into Joyce's pocket;
sighting Diane behind a glove counter & knew
how love can come from behind and mug you.
It has been a long slow kiss
to the fates and it has been
sublime.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

THIS INAUGURATION DAY IS A DAY

for Monk,
Thelonious
that is; it's
a WELL YOU NEEDN'T day,
a NUTTY day,
a STRAIGHT, NO CHASER, day,
a BLUE MONK, day.
Turn off
the news,
the TV.
Do not
read.
Forget
what you know.
Give yourself
over
to the dots
that can't be
connected,
but
(somehow)
are.
Arm yourself
with a chuckle,
a knowing grin.
And once sated
move forward
into the breach
and take up
the fight
again.

Norman Savage
Bronx, NY 2017

PART OF CHAPTER 10--THE DEPARTURE LOUNGE

“You think about dyin?” I continued, “That cross your mind?”

“‘Every third thought is that of the grave.’ Sure I think about it.”

“Ain’t pretty, is it?”

“No, it ain’t pretty…Nobody dies with any dignity, the only thing we can do is live with some.”

“Who said that?”

“I just did.”

“My mom had a tough death, but I don’t think about her much; I think about my old man from time to time.
Him I still think about. My mother was like ice in her cardboard box, just as angry dyin as she was livin, but my ol’ man…”

“Yeah, your ol’ man was a prick, but he had some heart.”

“Yeah, he was a prick, but he did have some heart, and humor, and a whole lotta bullshit.”

“I still haven’t forgotten you not comin to my father’s funeral, man; I was all by myself…”

“I had a needle in my arm in those years…”

“Who the fuck cares how you got there, but you shoulda got there…but my mom went out wearing head-phones, listening to “Ruby, My Dear,” and sucking down Courvoisier.”

“Not bad.”

“No, not bad…I gotta get high now just listenin to you. Why didya take me there?”
He smoked as much weed as I did cigarettes.
“Ah shit, Brazzie: Fucking phone sales?”

“What’s the difference?” he said as he tried to hold down the reefer. “It’s about survival; that’s all it’s ever been about,” he said, as he let it out. “You do the best you can with what you got. Period. End.”

“How the hell do you do that?”

“Not well.”

I wanted to be back on the massage table. I wanted to get high. I wanted Tina’s hands on me again. I wanted a spike in my vein. I would have settled for Hillary Clinton’s hands…no, no, not them, but somebody’s. Maybe a Percocet?…an Advil…Bayer, anyone?

“You’ll probably be good at it…”

“Oh, yeah…”

“Yeah, Heller; you spent your whole life honing your bullshit and now you have those poor fucks who have no one to talk to, who’s dying to have a conversation with somebody, anybody, to listen to you.”

“That’s great, man, thanks for sharin that…Sure, where the fuck they goin?…I’ll tell ya where I’m goin though—I’m goin ta bed…I’m gonna lie down, put a period on this fuckin day.”

“It’s a semicolon, Heller. It’s only a semicolon.”

(39-40 of pages 539) 


NICE

to have thought of you
yesterday; the city ripe
and waiting
to be eaten,
as the air parted
to allow the sparest
of spirits
through; even the grass
dribbled semen
out the earth's
brittle cunt singing
into the hollows
of ears
attuned
to every and any
rumbling. How we go
in the eye's blaze,
all fire engine truth
& sanitarium green,
drifting on reeds
of failure
& fortune.

Funny
how the soul
shakes to the quick
syncopation
of fears
imagined.
How you,
hero or
heroine,
without knowing it,
fall back
on your own
petard
like Billie
handcuffed
to her hospital bed
wondering where
her next gig
was coming
from & what
sweet song
will make love
inside
her mouth
next.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

RUBY, MY DEAR

Monk,
solo,
sweet
& lovely,
spare,
but rhythmic,
&, O,
so
gentle.

Not many
women,
nor men,
are like
that--Praise
the Lord.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014