THE LOVE SONG THAT IS HEROIN

is like a Billie & Lester duet...

is like sin caressing the anxious blood...

Her nipples sore
from her baby's greed.
She knew he'd grow
into his need
and take advantage
of every extended tit
and suckle until enough warmth
lined his belly...

My flesh
awaits yours;
my lips taste
your taste.
An old man
whose memories
are almost as dry as a twig
yet spill what little sap is left
into a feverish enterprise
of grief.
History's bastard,
a slow rendition
of want...

I know I'm a sucker
for pain,
and have a cavernous sweet tooth
for memory.
And what else is memory
if not a seductive trip
down a mine field
that always leads
to loss...

Now these old bones rattle
from a barren cold
and what else
beside the blast furnace
of a flower
that swells & drips its honey
into a spoon that swirls
the spillage of time
into a hot brew
that thaws & forgives the mind
while it coats & soothes
the stomach
will suffice?

Just leave me alone
& let me drift...
on a reed.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

SAM

http://bit.ly/28Trzb6

You were three
and I was nearly sixteen.
You had yet to find
misery, and I had found
too much of it.
You would, shortly, catch-up.

Then, in Bed-Stuy,
I saw Sam
live. My old man
took me. Lucky,
for me, he was
a black Jew
for his time.
Sam defined
my pain; he helped
get to my bones.

I've tried
to get to
yours.

I'm still
trying.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

"NOBODY KNOWS THE TROUBLE I'VE SEEN"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQzlzH5wymc

Is true
enough
for all
of us,
in our
time
everywhere,
but only
one
fills
our
silence
with that
pain
full
absolution.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

WHAT A SHAME

you love me
only from a distance.
Popping up
every so often
to feed
your being
by seeing
if I've fed
mine:
Either I love you
or no one; you exist
or forgotten; the poetry
itself matters
little.
But no matter.
I love
your love,
however warped
& twisted
it springs
from a tortuous sense
of self.
I do
however
abhor
the distance.
"Call me Ishmael,"
if you like.
My soul,
like his,
is damp
& drizzly
in my months
of constant November.
My exploration
of good
& evil
stops
with you.

You've digested
enough love
in your life.
The thought
of another
is nauseating.
Hell, indeed,
for you,
is other people.

I would give you
a wafer
& wine
instead, but that,
too, reeks
of flesh
& of that
you've eaten
your fill.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

ON WRITING: IN THE STRETCH

You've lived
with something
for almost
eight years.
You've loved it,
fought with it,
caressed it,
kissed it,
abandoned it...and
came back to it.
You can't leave it
because
it never left you.

You've aborted
six months of work,
a hundred and fifty pages,
once and nearly a hundred
again; you've played,
at first
with first
person,
then third,then
back to first.
You've made notes
on little scraps
of paper &
on the palm
of your hand;
you've played
in the stream
& of the stream,
you thought
a door opened
and saw it get shut
in your face.
It wanted nothing
to do with you.
It only made you
love it more.

No doubt
my love
of pain
held me
there.
I found that true
for other lovers
as well.
No doubt
there is something
to be said
for isolation
& all the pain
& pleasure
that brings.
There are those
who think
that we writers
are something
special--and we writers
would have to
agree. The truth is
that we're sonsofbitches,
cocksuckers, leeches,
and lovers of pleasures
that have nothing to do
with pleasures
of a more pedestrian
nature. We want
our cake
our fork
our slice
and our fix
and we don't
want to pay
for it in coin,
but in blood.

Now, when I can see
the end of this
I am more miserable.
It means, that soon,
I have to go
amongst you
again. Gimme
a smoke.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

IT BREATHES WITH US

as we breathe: in
out, in
out & in
again: relief
in concentration...
a moment, maybe, maybe
your moment.
our rhythms like ancient
bellows torn
from use; an old accordion
tethered to a mustachioed Italian
and his monkey who stumbles
and grins a poor excuse
asking for change.
Up the streets
and down
it travels with us
like a birthmark.
The secret so obvious
it defies reason: Pain
simply is.
It makes flowers explode
& sagging bridges weep;
pain litters
long after the parade
is cleansed & remains
in the beds of those
long expired. Pain
has nowhere to go
because it goes anywhere
it wants;
it's patient,
it moves,
it waits
for your feet
to land on mats
that say, "Welcome Home."

It's not surprising
how many are mad,
but how few; how many
punch clocks day after day
eating from the same bowl
of shit and thinking it's sirloin;
how few suicides how few drunks
how few junkies how few nuthouses
how little exits
we have.
Yes,
they've given us songs,
but the songs are mostly sap;
yes, they've given us scripts,
but they're concocted, too.
And they've given us love,
but the love is finally selfish
and brokered by forces we cannot hope to see.

Like now:
how little I've enjoyed
writing this

or you
in your place now
breathing
on it.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014