MOTHS & FLAMES

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My in-box
is a tinderbox
of maybes.
And I come
from a long line
of seekers:
Catullus & Shelley
& Byron & all those
rowboat suicides
have made my pebbled path
no easier to traverse,
but fun to follow.

Words have lit
the back alleys
of madness
& another has
found me
behind those
choreographed characters
at my age
now.

In this heat
we look toward
Christmas.
I'll begin
to prepare
my lair
now...

Jingle Bells.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

ISLAND HOPPING

I've sweated
& absorbed
hundreds of cultures
while your blood
courses with thousands.
My island
is steel.
Your land
is sunshine.
We shake
from the glint
of refraction.
The coronets
are filled
with blood;
the games
are yet
to begin.
Nature & man
are majestic
& depraved.
Mad desire
moves all.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

IF I GOT YOU

so wrong,
why
are you
right
here?

A mistake
of nature?
Hardly,
my dear;
rather
a melding
of illness'.
Call it
Mother
Nature
limiting
the destruction.

I kinda like that.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

THE BIG STRAINER

mashes & grinds & sifts
delectables & edibles & insufferable
into a bite sized baby's maw
easily absorbed easily digested
easily jettisoned & disregarded
allowing the barest visage, a ghost
of experience to cling to linger
in chambers lost or
barricaded.

Spaghetti or worms.
Necrosis or penecillin.
"A Swell" or swine.
Blue or blue is up
for grabs.

How sure we are
that our filter
isn't clogged &
& fogged & fucked
beyond reason.

How what we see
is what we see.
I am The Bible
as I read
the word
around me.

Once upon a time
we strained our precious pot
to separate the seeds & stems
from the merciful leaf;
it was our church
of ritual.
We prided
the sacrements.
We gently rubbed
and watched the colored grass
fall and pool in a mound below.
Stickiness and colors predicted
our religion & reward.
That was when I had friends
who were young & brilliant.

The pot is stronger now:
Culled & cultivated
by experts
& marketed in shops; it's
techno nature. A marriage
marred by intrusion: lights,
irrigation. Season-less.
We've let men
& machines
infect
what's left
of imagination.
We've let them
strain
even our
dreams.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

SHE TOLD ME

her dream
of swimming
in a sea
of teeth
yellowed
by ovens
of hate.
What
would she
have me
do?

A storm
was at
our elbow.
We bowed
to belief
born of
grief's shadows.
How
had we come
to such sadness?

We dined
on Mulligan Stew
from an old Chinaman's curfew;
the tin forces
of a steely wind
braced us
for the lactating
commercial.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

NATURE

I'm a loner
by nature,
no matter
how much
I secretly
(I think)
crave
company.

I've been asked
what I'm doing
Thanksgiving?
To each
I've replied:
I'm busy.
I'm not
busy.
I'm busy
trying
to be busy:
take myself
to a movie;
cook lamb stew;
stay alive
for a bit longer.
How I do that
is how I've done it
for sixty eight years:
bob & weave, avoid
being hit
too hard,
& playing
with my typer's keys.

So far
so good.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015