IT WOULD BE SILLY

One For the Old Geezers

to try
& lie
to you
now.
You know
I'll try.
I know
I'll try.
I promise
to resist.

Some
have noticed
a diminishment
of poems
of late.
Some
have even
inquired.
No,
I tell them,
it's the gods
that destroy
& make men mad,
not I. I am ready
I assure them
and am merely
waiting like any
good Christian
to receive
what is given.
I tell them,
take heart,
I still want to fuck
every woman I see,
& more importantly,
they want to still fuck me.
(I'm sure they know,
as I do,
that's only half true).
Yes, I still imagine
nipples naked with need
of varying length
& sweetness & color;
yes, I still taste
different heated nectars of emissions.

And the words still come
but slower; better,
perhaps, but slower.
And memories perfect
in their lies, pile up
on runways waiting
for this infernal fog to lift
but stubbornly clings
to the sides of wings preventing
full flight:
fully in control of exceleration,
the Porsche obeying my instincts,
leaning into a corner at fifty,
a magician's inner stroke
of light's genius;
the proper word to light
the inner demons of a cueball
& bank life's mystery & madness--
a sweet narcissism
of self-serving
excellence.

There will be
more poems,
good & bad
after this;
how many
is not for me
to say.
I'm sure
"slowing down"
is an "art"
too, but one
I haven't
mastered
yet.
I've been too busy
trying to work
on it.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

FUCK AND FUCKING WITH SEVENTY

When I was feeling-up Susie--
twirling her pink nipple
like a juggling fool
and inhaling
her adolescent powder or
gently chalking-up a pool cue,
or releasing a sixteen pound
black ball that rolled
down a slick alley and nestled
into the one/three pocket
turning five into five hundred,
or downshifting a Porsche
into a corner
doing fifty--
I hardly thought
about age or
infirmities,
those little gremlins
of egress and transgress
and impasse.

And now, suddenly,
here I am.
Most of the stuffing
come out
like an old pillow
and I still don't think
about what I can't do
but what I want to get done.

Tomorrow,
I will have been born
for the seventieth time.
And although more happened
during the first ten births
then my last sixty
(if what I hear is true),
and won't remember the final breath,
(if what I hear is true),
I have all the splendid mess
between. The gods
have been more than good to me,
they've been
generous...and
I want more.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

A GREAT POEM HIDES

in the thumb
of a hitchhiker,
or the greed of a Queen
bumblebee; it's
a dollar found
hugging a sock
underneath
a torn pocket
of a barfly
after last call
is called.

It could by a map's mistake,
or the dried out tit
of a riverbed. Perhaps,
the first or
the last word
of a tortured phrase,
or a sentence
outliving a period.

The gods
are wise.
They know
that this
could be
a great poem,
but that's
up to you.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

I'M CLOSING IN

on two hundred pages
and figure I'm a little more
than half way done.
I also know
where it's going,
though I have no idea
of how
it's going
to get
there.
I could say,
I'm confused,
but that's not true;
confusion
is just
my normal state
that no one word
describes, it's part
of me.
I'll take that
anytime.
The word gods
have been
very very
good to me;
they always
have.
It's a Christmas gift
and New Year harbinger
of allowing me to do
what I do best:
play with myself.

I'm bloated
with words; rabbit
pregnant pushing
out poems
& paragraphs
& pages.
But
there is
a cost.
If you fuck
with those gods
you fuck with losing
what those gods have granted.
You believe
that there will always
be another girlfriend,
but there might not be
another poem
about her. History
has told you that.

I have no intention
of returning the gift
that fits so well
& feels so good.
Words of cashmere
and silk; words
that taste good;
words that linger
like the glow
around the bulb
after you turn-off
the light.

And I am a junkie
on that kind of run.
I've got enough
dope for tonight
& a wake-up shot
in the morning.
What else
is there
for a junkie
to know?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014

THE GRACE OF THE GODS

The Gods gave me
a chronic illness
when eleven, before
I knew what a chronic illness
was. It scared the shit
outta me,
but fifty-six years later
I know
they also provided me
an ability to fuck with it,
and around it.
They gave me
a good ear,
a good eye,
& a mind
as jumbled
as the New York underground
to make sense
of the senseless.
They never gave me
patience, rationality,
stability; or the make-up
to work continuously
at one thing. It figures
I've little money,
little savings,
few coins of commerce,
except hope's pyrite:
getting discovered
by those who are able
to do something about it.
They've bestowed,
so far,
an unlimited supply
of words
and women
at the right time,
in the right place,
who treated me better
than I deserved.
More
than I deserved.
As if "deserve"
has anything
to do
with any
of us.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014

THANK THE GODS

The Betty Poems

for knowing more
than us.
Had they given us
more money
or less sense;
had we less
desperation,
a smidgen less
hunger; had sex
not meant
escape;
had imperatives
not been handcuffed
to illness
and age;
had not a "fuck-you"
attitude tethered
to childhood disease
and family crucifixion;
had we treated ourselves
kinder with love
given from love;
had we been born
right handed
or left brained;
had the grass
not been greener
on the other side;
had the horses
not been swifter
under other's saddles;
had the fears
we nurtured
shared instead of coveted;
had the bodies
we abhorred
and refused to live in
been as beautiful
as our brains
which we did
and prized well beyond
their worth;
had we lived nearer
to each other
and able to walk
around the block
and into what
we thought
was heaven
it would have been hell.
One of us
would have called the cops
or an ambulance;
we would have killed
each other
and ourselves
because we had to.
Instead,
the gods,
for whatever reason,
pulled
the right strings
for the right puppets;
they made us dance
and gave themselves
a laugh and gave us:
"this." "This"
which cannot be named;
"this" which summons
more of "this."
"This" indestructible
and endless "this."
"This" is "that"
which we gave
each other.
"This" is a poem
to you. "That"
is you reading
it.
And that
is enough
thank
the gods.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014