RUSSIA HAS THE GOOD SENSE

to look backwards
at my poetry--
they must feel
the rawness
of my youth
when the blood-jet
was greatest.
I was young enough
not to know
what I was doing,
but did it anyway.
I figured
I'd leave
my mistakes
for other people
to find.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

VD

They have fucked
their country silly,
and they've used
no protection,
but it's we
who drip
from syphilis,
gonorrhea,
genital herpes
and all manner
of yeast infections.
Pus is in
our drinking water,
puke is in the air.
Penicillan is useless
against this strain
of virus; only words
as guns or cannons
will staunch the flow
of bullshit.
Vladimir & Donald,
cocksmen for our age,
living in our bloodstream
for far too long,
has rendered us blind
and truly
insane.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

TAKE WHAT YOU WANT, GOD IS DEAD AND HIS MOM WENT SHOPPING

The world will soon explode
from grief.
Young black & white girls
expose fecal tunnels of love
on CraigsList for cheap
tradeoffs of minimum wage
allowing the breath
of truck drivers
& university professors
to reach into their innards
& steal what never was:
youth & possibilities.
Russia is mad
with memories
& China with rice futures;
India keeps trying to grow
deserts of food
& the Congo beats drums
of failures & fortunes.
A crippled falcon
cannot be seen or heard
as the circles grow wider
above Christmas sales
& Hallmark bromides.

Our guts get pulled out
struggling with biology
as our little experiment
is unraveling.
Our only meal
is eating pussy
or sucking cock--
damn the nutrients.
Money & pleasure
should be the faces
on bills of exchange:
Caligula, Nero,
Mick Jagger.

Mom will be back
soon...unless
she gets trampled
in the rush
to be first
when the store
opens. She wants
an X-Box.
She's determined
not to lose
another son
that has yet
to be
conceived.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

THE RUSSIAN ARTIST

I've always been
a little envious
of the Russian artist.
How to avoid
the whip & the pistol,
the ice & the cage
while sticking out
your tongue at your
would be masters heats
the vein's blood,
but makes the hand cold
& clammy.
Of course,
this is being written
by one who's never faced
a firing squad
or a censor,
whose back & hands
are unscared
& untroubled
by midnight knocks
& flashlight eyes.
My bravery
is limited--
like noting others
who are.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

VODKA

Don'tcha love
potato farmers?
Tilt up
the glass
& taste
Fyodor's blood,
Mayakovsky's phlegm,
the drip
of Turgenev,
the mad laugh
of Gogol,
the fever & grace
of Baryshnikov,
Vygotsky's reach...
The liquid breath
is clean
anger
only clouded
by rants
of those possessed
by a holy negation;
too holy
to be written,
too sacred
for screed,
balancing a universe
drunk
on its axis
& lonely
for its
children.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

TAKING A LEAK IN URINALS MADE OF PYRITE

All men peek
at urinals
at men
who stand
next to them
surreptitiously
checking size.
Their eyes
on a swivel
as mine were
the other evening.
O, my,
I said
to myself:
Trump,
on my right,
had a dick
like a wrinkled spigot;
Vlad had the head
of a marble.
I turned
to my left,
I turned
to my right
& zipped up
slowly.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

UNDER THE VOLGA RIVER

flows tributaries
of blood.
And that blood
flows through
the heartbeats
of dissidents.
And those dissidents
are the only ones
keeping Russia alive.
Remember that,
all those who think
those stains
on the shoes of dictators,
are freshly applied polish.
We can do more
than just bleed.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

VD ENTERPRISES

I don't mind
that Vladimir
& Donald divvy up
the world
as if they were cutting
into a ripe cunt begging
for their mouths;
I don't mind
that Stalingrad
& Gettysburg
& millions
of dead stumps
sticking in
the flushed earth
are fronts
for dick-waving
& flag fawning.
I don't even mind
that their walnuts
are patted with powders
as they suckle
from enormous breasts
through endless nights.

No, I don't mind.

What I do mind
is that neither one
of those motherfuckers
have started
a poetry magazine.
I, too, have
priorities.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

RUSSIAN PRELUDES & NOCTURNES

I found our grandeur
in a Karaoke bar
on the lower east side:
Putin was singing
Pussy Riot--
quite good actually
--while Trump
was taking a shave.
Wait til I finish,
Vladimir said,
then slit it.
(He was always
a cold
sonofabitch).

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

RUSSIA HAS NOT BEEN KIND

to its artists.
Never has.
But being kind
to artists
is not necessarily
a good thing--
just ask Americans
who get killed
by the fawning over
fame that this country
spits up.
Still,
had I born born
on the vodka tundra,
I would have been
in a gulag
or two
by now
--if I'd stayed alive.
And while that might
have been good
for my art
& the folks
I've fucked-over,
there were a few girls
& women who would have
grown old & died
without my charms
& many good graces
a laugh can provide.

I've gotten emails
from all over the world,
but not from The Red Square--
where a lot of my readers live.
For the sake of the gods
don't write me,
keep breathing,
keep reading,
keep writing,
keep painting,
keep dancing,
keep singing,
& most of all:
keep fucking
everybody
except
(only a little bit),
yourself.
And that,
my comrades,
will make me,
very
very
happy.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

RUSSIAN ACTION

I seem to be
getting a lot of hits
on this blog
from old mother Russia.

I like that.

People of the earth;
people of history;
people who are nuts
in all the ways
I can understand:
literature nuts;
music nuts,
art nuts,
nut nuts.

My eighth grade english teacher,
Miss Edelman, my first crush
on an older woman, showed me
Dostoyevsky's C&P; Rasknolikov
dropped his ax
and cleaved my head
in two.
He was followed by Gogol,
& that old bedbug himself,
Mayakovsky. They're all
the soil's blood.

And I'd like to think
I am, too.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015