WHAT WAS BETTER

than stealing
an afternoon
from school,
playing hooky
in anybody's crib
whose parents
were gone or
couldn't give a fuck?
Somebody
always had some reefer;
Somebody
had a fistful of Black Beauties;
Somebody
had a down or two;
Somebody
brought a pint;
And everybody
had a pack of Bambu.
You had vinyl
or an FM radio.
Everybody posed.
Everybody was cute.
Everybody was handsome.
Everybody was experienced.
Everything revolved
around us.
We yak yak yaked
up an afternoon,
scrawled our own
hieroglyphics on rolled parchment,
tongues outpacing words,
plans fevered by amnesia,
outstripping notions of resources.

And what was worse
than our fears
catching up
to our coming down
and going home
to arguments
around dinner tables,
slaps & accusations;
unable to eat
from the speed;
thick with coats
residue & saliva
& dreams shaped
like a coffin
of the mouth.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

AN OPEN SECRET

The Chinaman
ironing shirts
knows this;
the matador
poised on his toes ready
to thrust
knows this;
the coke smuggling wetback
knows this;
the milkman
and gravedigger
the lancelot and stevedore
the film idol
and long distance trucker
and FBI tracker
and Appalachian miner
and proctologist
know this: Nothing
is worse
than fighting
with your woman
on Sunday night.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

MY BABY'S BIRTHDAY

The Betty Poems

is coming up
and in some way,
anyway,
I want to be there--
in person, in voice,
in spirit--
to celebrate it
with her.
Two people in love
should be in love
on days of love--
marriage
sickness
birth
death
Ben Casey
infinity
--and the dross
and dullness
of life.
But we're still
on the outs.
We're behind bars,
murdering
our gift;
we sniff
around our degenerate
lives and invite
misery
to climb aboard
and travel well-worn
arteries and veins
of hummingbirds
inside the cat's
mouth.
Crapshooters
and night crawlers;
pederasts of the cloth
and women angels
of the night singing
prayers of the luck
to the luckless.

As the needle inches
its way toward full
it implies the other
empty. We believe
we have just so much
to give before
it runs out. So,
we remain,
on the outs.
A concession
is worse than death:
somebody wins
somebody loses.
You might think
at sixty-five
I wouldn't give
a fuck.
You'd be
wrong.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013

HAAGEN-DAZS IS THE ONLY PUSSY I LIKE TO LICK NOW

for Joey Skaggs

You don't have to worry
about freshness
or taste; it is youthful,
unlined, uncreased, unencumbered;
it's not etched
by experience
and so its face
does not snarl
or bite
from wounds inflicted
by those whose hands
and head and cock
had got there before
and staked claim.

The Dazs tells you nothing
about parents
and boyfriends
and ex-husbands
planted or not; there's no mention
of friends
who've betrayed them
or who ask
for more
than they give;
there are no jobs
and so no bosses
who grab at their ass
or their time
and stake claim to your time
by having you hear
their little betrayals after
a day of your own.
There's no risk
of syphilis, chlamydia,
yeast
or urinary infections;
no pounds
they have to shed;
nowhere they
have to be.
They do not care
what you've eaten
before you get to them,
nor what it is you're watching
as you wait
for them to soften
(or that you're already soft for that matter).

At my age
I do not care for arguments,
only to stay alive
a little while longer
to catch some more grace
from the gods. I still need
something
to soothe
and morphine and booze
demand too much
of my time
and money.

At one time
I was in love
with the chase,
the battle
of wits,
the jousting
in new mirrors
in strange bathrooms
where the souls
of women are hung
and displayed.
I loved the conquest
and sometimes love
that lasted as long
as two people
having compatible neurosis
would let it.

But now I like my love
measured
in pints
that are easily
replaceable.
If I got five bucks,
or ten,
and I usually do,
I can pull a pint or two
off the frozen shelf
and take it home with me.
I will not have to hear
about the day,
about the kids,
about the disappointments
or the disillusions.
And I will not have to hear
about all the things,
many things,
different things each day,
I'm not doing.
But could do.
If only
I cared--which I usually never did.
I just put them
in the freezer. And there
they'll wait
until my need becomes desire
and I'll strip them bare
and devour them
with a cultivated
style.

Older men
have their ways.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011