WHEN MY EX-WIFE WAS BORN

I was already in love
with another woman.
In fact,
I was crazy in love with her.
It moved pieces of me around.
But then,
junk took over,
and made the living
dead & the dead more real
than the living,
but the dead didn't dance
for decades--
until my ex
became my now
& now became new
& shiny.
But then,
the junk took over.
And darkness fell
on a soft
& useless
dick.
These women,
loves of my life,
were born three days
but twenty-six years
apart.
One was straight-laced New Jersey finishing school;
the other radical Japanese artist Nagasaki poor.
The common denominator
was me...
& poetry.
Always is.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

I'VE NEVER BEEN VISITED BY THE DEAD

Maybe
they've been busy,
I've reasoned,
lighting the runways
for those
about to take off,
or land?
We all have our jobs
to do--like writing
this poem
in the dark.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017