I'M GETTING USED TO DYING

in increments;
how the very air
you breathe in,
ushers yourself
out. Understanding this
is not easy; yet accepting
and playing with it
is both foolish
but inescapeable.
Your first & only love,
the mirror,
has told you
to pack your shit.
Too late
comes change
to change
your mind.
If you're honest
you want more
though there's
nothing much more
left to do
and less than that
to do much with;
another wrinkle
of thought
crisscrosses
across your face
now chiseled as if sense
needs explanations.
My discoverers will learn
the meaning of zero.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2020

THE OLD SHELL GAME

I try to hide
the black queen
of consciousness
underneath distractions.
And so I switch
from MSNBC
to TCM,
from Max Von Sydow
to Brian Williams,
from an expensive custom fit suit
and elegant striped tie,
to the fundemental garb of knights,
a sword of defense & conquest at his hip.
Both of these searchers,
both of these truth tellers,
are weary
from the battle,
the constant onslaught
of plagues & pandemics
begun & christened by
presidents & kings addled
with power & paranoia.

Philosophers seek death--
that is their job.
They are paid a pittance
for their efforts.
Brian & Max are entertainers
paid to inquire about death,
but distract us & our death
in the offing. They
are very well paid
for seeking out God's hand
in the sky's excrement
we slosh around in.
What truth can be found
in this chessgame of extirpation.

I press the Spectrum clicker:
Brian asks reporters how to make sense
of our president's lies, deceits,
and calloused disregard for lives
left to lurch in the dark
for a toilet that was there a minute ago;
Max is Swedish, cooler, just moving his knight.
Brian probes, though he knows the dialogue;
Max attacks...or hides in the rough;
Brian juggles opinions; Max alights with doubts;
Brian must adhere to corportate time;
Max submits to Bergman's script & directions.
If it seemed weightier back then
it's not because of passion, each
being masters of their craft, but
the difference between black & white & color;
for home has always held less safety
then the queen would have you believe.

Still, I could opt out--
turn on Seinfeld
or Columbo or
a hundred other electric narcotics
the tube offers, a mere click away.
But they, too, have a beginning,
middle & end; they too
provide an easy lie. I know
this will end one day
only because I will end one day.
Someone else will be drowning
in this swill. Probably,
the waters will be murkier,
the air more fetid; a bag
of potato chips will be lighter
but cost the same; toilet paper
will be fatter but cost more
than the food for waste did; meat
will be caged, all fish farmed;
each will be xeroxed copies of each;
fruits & vegetables lab produced
to only look like their pictures.
And the big questions will be
no bigger than the small ones
and every one will be sure
where the queen is
and once again
they will be
taken, fleeced
and coming back
for more.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2020

USE WHAT YOU GOT; USE EVERY ITTY-BITTY THING GOD GAVE YOU OR THE DEVIL SOLD YOU; USE YOURSELF UP

1.

Use it like a gun
or a pocket mirror;
use it like a hairy fist,
or a set of fast thumbs.
Use it
as if your mother is hiding
inside you,
clocking your action,
judging, finger pointing,
wagging her stupid floppy tongue
cursing your infidelity.
Your memories
are simply oiled up
& begging to be caught.
Catch them.
Let the wind
drive them into your bones.
And let your bones rattle
and scatter in God's celestial crap-game.

2.

Make love to your disease--
if you're lucky enough to have one;
it pleases the gods
who thought it wise
to grant you a gift.
Embrace
its confines,
lick the edges
where, as all fugitive lovers know,
lies the sweetness of evanesence.
Your disease
will make you a better liar,
a better fabulist,
a better spinner of tales;
in short, a better artist.

3.

Winter has leaned early
into your crib
and froze your sap.

4.

I am
an old bull elephant
in must...

5.

Since I was a young boy
the fears have come
with regularity; I hold
an empty can of Coke
in one hand
& a Lucky in the other.
Neurosis drips
over the side of the bed
& pools in the can
with the ashes.
They are all useless
except as instruments
like music.
I have sung
the sad meat of my bones
and now gnaw the gristle.

I'll take some hot sauce with that...
make it to go.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

AFTER THE IDEA HITS,

but before laying it down--
before putting pen to paper,
before putting fingers to keyboard,
before putting mouth to mic,
I must stop
to procrastinate.
I could tug
on my balls,
dig in
a little;
the decision hanging
in the balance--
type it?
scribble it?
breathe
into this smartphone?
or maybe take a shit?
brew a cup of tea?
or coffee?
start a fight
with dead people?
or look for butterflies
in my fist?
maybe stringing up
a rope?...

You see
a poem
has an urgency
I want to control
because it feels so good
and comes
so infrequently
I want to punish it
for being so stingy
while making love to it
for being so goddamned sexy.

The risk, of course,
is having them die
before they fully show,
but who said
being a hedonist
was ever easy.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

MY BLOCK

used to be hot:
Dylan Thomas drank himself
into St. Vincent's;
Delmore Schwartz
dreamt himself into suicide;
Eleanor Roosevelt funneled
her tits into a D cup
& her lesbian lovers;
Melville & Twain & Poe
scraped horseshit from their boots
& ambled and rambled about America
& God & sea journeys;
Pollock & deKooning
had fist fights
over brush strokes & pussy,
while Rothko thought of black
colors & early death while Klein
the black & white firmnament.

Now...
there are bankers
& banks...& kids
who still smell of piss
& freshly minted credit cards.
You,
or your parents,
have to be rich--
7 dollar ice teas,
& 15 dollar a pound laundries
demand no less.
"Art" is no longer a subject
but a laugh.
And I
can't get
a hardon
over much,
much less
poems
like this.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

PACK YOUR SHIT

You've got
six months
to live.

Non-negotiable.

No,
this is not
Hemingway.

No,
this is not
art.

Yes,
this is
cancer.

(mommy)

(Mommy)

(MOMMY).

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

I COME BEARING GIFTS

I bring you all my shit
and put it in your hands:
a hundred years of shards,
a library full
of tears, laughter
the wind catches
on its breath; these
are pedestrian
I know, but they're
just the foot soldiers.
Here's Johnny Too Bad
by Taj,By the Rivers
of Babylon, by Jimmy C;
Crime & Punishment,
which we've cultivated,
& The Ivy Crown,
which we haven't.
Miles
of music subversive,
and as dangerous
as Botticelli's gold
fuck rays streaming
to the virgin's womb;
vagabond's ramblings
& scrambled eggs
in forsaken diners,
thick slabs of bacon,
coffee hot enough
to know your tongue's there.
I give you old smelly corpses
of uselessness; dreams
brokered by cruelty; a city
of maybes...

My Medea,
I come to you knowing
I must be killed...
but not yet,
baby.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

THE ART OF FALLING IN LOVE

A circus catch
in Hell;
Marlon Brando crossing
the river Styx;
Bogart riddled
not with bullets
but cancer
a non-filtered
hanging
from a lip looking
for a short skirt
at a boxing match.
Today we walk
to a dance
not knowing
who's playing.

We had the luck
of Beckett
lying
in a dung-heap
of prayer.
But
we are well-equipped
for this ride:
you have a few stories
and I have Bach's cello
in my pocket.

Tonight
I'm making a stew
from Proust's neck bone;
and if you'd be so kind
to put his gizzards
in that blender
we can dine
in style.

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

MISHA'S DANCE OF DEATH ON HIS OWN RUSSIAN SOIL

My age now,
Misha is,
nearer than further,
astride the grave,
a Beckett waltz
on his breath
he dances
in Brodsky's shadow.
How the old dowagers flock
toward the memory
of his beautiful body
and find only
decrepitude instead.

Almost forty-five years ago
in a loft on Chambers Street
I sat like a schoolchild
watching the clash of egos.
Cecil and Misha
(and poor little Heather
in a corner) cornered
by their art
trying to birth a marriage.

Our beginnings are our ends.
We know this,
but don't really know this,
until we see the flesh
hanging from the bone.

Twenty years ago
I saw Cecil at The Vanguard.
A solo performance.
It sounded like a late Beethoven sonata,
a summing up. Now Misha.
And now the dowagers
who no longer smile
at their memories.
"Art" never was
supposed to be
entertainment.

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

SUCKING COCK

is an art.
Don't let
anyone
tell ya different.
So's making love,
laying brick
or cable;
sweeping
streets
or just plain
sweeping;
making beds
or making-up
after wishing
the other person
dead;
cutting tulips
or slitting throats.
It's the grace
of the thing
within the thing
that brings the divine
to the mundane.

Train your inner eye
on yourself.
Teach it
to notice.
Do it
the next time
you step
from the shower.

See,
see
what
I
mean?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

DIAPHANOUS VEILS BLOW FOUL & ILL WINDS, ON AN OTHERWISE BEAUTIFUL DAY

I'm taking them down.
Deleting them.
I've heard
The Greek chorus:
"Sometimes
second thoughts
are best."
Besides--
no longer
is there a point to prove.
A puppeteer needs
a puppet
made of wood
or old socks,
has buttons
for eyes
or straw
for innards,
not something
that really does
breathe.
Knowing how
I've danced
on the end
of your strings
has made me sick
to my stomach.
I'd like revenge
but not this way.
To see your mania
& feel your unease
brought a smile
to my face
while my soul,
the little I have left,
shriveled & wept.

If the work
as a whole
ever gets held
between covers--
be it
by my hand
or others--
OK.
But doing it
this way
is cheating.
It lessens
not who we are--
because we never
were much--
but something
more important:
the craft
of turning
the shit
of living
into smaller,
more digestible,
bite sized
end products
we so conveniently
call "art."

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

"TAKE A BREAK"

for j. and in spite of her...

she said to me.
"Gimme a minute...
I need to get this shit
down," I answered.
"You said that
an hour ago...
it's my Sunday, too."
"A minute,
just a minute,"
I promised.
"Now, Savage,
I need some
attention
now."
"It's still early,
night's young."
"But not you;
your shelf life
is almost expired
and I've got an itch
that needs scratchin."
"Come over here," I parried.
"Seriously,
take a break; this cat
needs to purr."
Black women
are different
than white:
they get up
in your face
and no "no's"
placate
or appease.
"C'mon Daddy do
what you do."
"Fuckit,"
I said
without
letting her
hear it.
Beside
she had
a better way
with life
than I did.
And I'm simply
not that much
of an artist
or fascist.
I shut-off
the Mac
and did
what any man
would do:
obeyed.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014

"DEFORMITY" AS ART

Mirrors were not kind
to me: distortion
stalked my senses:
too fat,
too small,
too ugly.
But then
the obverse:
too handsome,
too smart,
too quick.
Balance
mocked my every step,
every twist,
every turn. And there
were many of each.

I had no real affinity
for anything
having to do
with life or
making a living:
mechanical,
cerebral,
political,
being one
or many, a cog
in the nightmare.
"Work" and me
were not friends.
I did not get on well
with others.
I was fluid, though,
at fantasy.

It was remarkable,
in this Charles Laughton of a life,
when my arrogance
and defenses were
kept at bay,
that so many women
loved me.
They deceived me
in wanting
to stay alive
a little longer:
so many whispers,
so many promises,
so many confidences
that turned ugly pain
and self-abnegation
into words
into an art
of deformity
that soothed
and glued the divided
self from self.

This last one,
though, loved
me in a different way:
deformed as well,
but as a lioness.
Female. A deeper
distortion. Without
an outlet. Imprisoned
by her body,
in her body,
she escaped only
by implosion.
She has a bottomless
distrust of humans.
And still
has to go
into the jungles
of civilization
& stalk the food
& cook it
& feed the children
who wait for her
while being
the same creature
who possesses
no valance
no firm
footing
in this brick
& mortar life.

I am glad
I am older
then her, nearer
the grave.
I will not have
to think of her
nearly as long
as she will think
of me.

"Art,"
like this poem,
is often times
not beautiful.
Our spirits
nearly extinguished
saw
the forms.
And the music
we made--even
the notes
that were
off
--leading up
to this poem
were beautiful.
I've never heard them
sung this way before.
I would believe
they're sung once
by the gods
and then
are gone.

I have nothing,
my dear,
& I want to share it
all with you.
If someone makes you
a better offer--
take it.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014

A SMALL PRICE TO PAY

All of us are born mad, some of us remain so.
--Beckett

Many people
throughout my life,
including my parents,
teachers, casual friends,
bosses, lovers and other instruments
of control, have said to me,
in these words,
or similar ones:
"Grow the fuck up."
"When are you going to stop
being such a goddamn child
& grow-up, do something
with your life, make something
of yourself; when are you going
to matter?"
I never knew
how to answer them.

The process
of socialization
is supposed
to make that happen;
to exchange,
in effect,
the metonymic
for the metaphoric.
It never happened
with me.
"Things"
which ideas
spring from,
are still, for me,
contiguous. "Shit"
comes out of "sirloin,"
"reds" live next to "goblins,"
"love" can very well be
a "crucifixion."

No, no,
you must work,
you must save,
you must listen,
you must be disciplined,
you must be nice
to others & pray
& marry & have children
& work & work & work
& put your shoulder
to the wheel

which I have,
but in a odd
way. Awry, askance,
coming at myself
from a backward
angle, words
have been my most constant
friend and lover
and the few friends
I still have
are still at it,
too--whatever "it" is
and whatever that means.

It's easy enough
to stamp your feet
when you're two,
and not move,
and shake your head, "no,"
"fuck-off," "get lost,"
"sorry, ain't interested."
Not that much harder
when you're twenty,
even thirty.
But past that
it gets
just a bit
harder;
the mortality rate
exponentially higher.
Few do it well
because few do it
at all.

The "house"
is society.
Like Vegas
they never
lose. They
have patience.
Eventually
if you stay
at the tables
long enough
they're going
to own you.
Except now.
Except
for me.
At nearly
67, chipped away
at, clipped, tired
as a motherfucker
I'm still swinging it.

Now,
I'm playing with
the house's
money.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014

YAKYAK, YAK, YAK, YAK

I've been listening
to their bullshit
it seems
all my life:
"I can do that, too,
only better";
"You think that's sompthin?
I got a book in here you won't believe,
& when I write it, it's gonna be sompthin,";
"That ain't good, I got sompthin really good,";
"I"m gonna paint
& when I do"...
"That's not a song,
I got a song"; or
"If I ran the company,
or the government, or
the world, then you'd
see"...
And the poor fuck
who's doing all
the listening
nods and agrees
that, yes,
they do have a book
or a painting
they just need to let
their inner beauty
show.

But it never is
is it? It never
shows; it never
gets done.
They whine
& bitch
& bellyache
about the unfairness
of life;
about how they would
if they could but life
is conspiring
against them:
it's a kid,
or a job,
or a car
breaks down,
or a tooth
needs to come out,
their stock is down,
but the market is up,
their mothers
& fathers, sisters
& brothers ask
too much
& give
too little;
they're sick
or despairing,
vacationing
or suiciding.
They're mis-
understood,
or mis-
diagnosed.
They've taken
too much dope
or not enough.
Their time
is circumscribed
by circumstances.

I'm getting quite sick
of them. The truth is:
they're full of shit;
they're not talented;
they've taken no risks,
sacrificed nothing
to do anything difficult
except get the ear
of a lesser human.
And don't tell me
about women having kids,
or men sprouting their seed
to procreate them
that that's creativity--that's
a rigged game.
Fuck that.

Oh, Savage,
you might say,
who the fuck are you? You
just write these inane
little poems about stupid
little subjects which are
mostly about yourself
& think you're such a big deal.
I can do that, too.

Ya see? Ya see?
That's what I mean.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014

MEMORIES ARE MADE OF BULLET-PROOF GLASS

For Diane

You stamp
and kick
and twist
around my swollen soul
while I curse
my bloated belly,
ankles and heart.
You know how much
your beauty haunts me.

Hang
the picture
so that it can,
of course,
be studied.

(Student's
are hip
to that

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1978-2013

J.D. SALINGER

is dead.
He never mattered
to me
when alive
and now
only matters
as impetus
for this poem
when dead.
"Catcher"
never did
"catch" me.
Never identified
with its hero
and found him
and the book
pretty boring:
A pretty boy
doing pretty things
and finding
a little ugliness
along the way.
Most of this life
is ugly
and my life
has been uglier
than that.
Only kindness
of any kind
is surprising.
I suppose
that sounds
pretty selfish
and stupid
and I suppose
it is.
But so
is art
and artists.
Particularly
artists
of any kind.
It's a very selfish
craft, indulged in
by selfish people
with a bloated
sense
of importance
far beyond
their worth.
I'll give him this though:
he struggled with the word
and I hope
someone else
will return the favor
to me
in kind.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2010