NEEDING TO RUN

All my waking life
I've felt like Man O'War
kicking in the stall
not understanding why
those fucking idiots
won't open the gates
and let me run like
I was meant to do.

Where I'd run to
was always
an open question.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

THERE YOU WERE

For J.

stuck
between two copies
of "Changes"
my first publication,
1967. They were yellow
with age, darkened
by NYC's sand-like grime,
musty smelling, brittle,
but not your pages
of poetry. They
leapt & kissed
& fondled memories hot
with the quivering pulse
of desire, erasing
four decades
in two breaths.

Who sez you can't read
& dance
at the same time? You
were my black orchid,
my narcissistic muse.
You were my narcotic...
and necrotic.
You were everything
I thought a disturbed poet
should aspire to
and be with: delicate,
beautiful, brilliant,
reckless...& married.
You found me
when you could
& found time
when you couldn't. How
your upper body would twist
around the gear shift
as I drove
and stammered
about poetry
while you
were actually
writing it.

"Heroin" and "Misty Roses"
informed us and highways
we tumbled down had no exits.
Our belief in a sorcerer's alchemy
made us ripe for our own lies.
Still, I would not change
nor exchange a minute
of what we were then
for another peaceful minute
of what I am now.
I have to believe
you feel the same.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

WHAT ARE THE ODDS

that a nine year old girl
from New Jersey
would be on a firing range
in Nevada,
outside of Las Vegas,
firing an Uzi
with the burly instructor--
who stood next to her
slim shoulder
with his arm
wrapped around
her tiny waist
--and still manage
to shoot him
in the head?

The name
of the range,
Bullets & Burgers,
is family friendly
unless
you're the family
of the shooter,
or the family
of the dead,
or the little nine year old
who saw the blood & brains
of her instructor on her little pink shirt,
or the eyes & brain of her instructor
in the second when he realized he
was no more.

If you own
Bullets & Burgers
you're in good shape:
more business
for a hot table.


I've heard
the bookmakers
have taken this
off the board
for tomorrow's
action.
What
a pity--I thought
I had an angle
on this one.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014