IT FEELS GOOD

to have dinner
with a female
again
and watch
her fingers
slice her need
into small pieces;
how deft she is
with a knife & fork
working her way
through a thicket
of motives.

Neither of us
are in a rush
to move toward
dessert; we know
we will arrive
there soon enough.
There is no danger
of running out
of room
for that.

Some things
never get
old.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

TOUCHING A TIT

was my goal,
my only goal,
for many many years.

Call me Ishmael
if you like,
or precocious,
but from the 5th grade
through most of high school,
that was way more important
than geometry unless
you consider that of innocence
& desire which I knew nothing about
but was drawn to constantly.
And it was not like I had steps. No.
Getting there was enough.
Under the bra was like discovering
a cure to adolescence; thinking
about the dark triangle of motives
was, well, unthinkable.

The goal
is still the same,
they still possess magic
& mystery;
only the tits
are attached
to different
torsos.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

DOCTOR'S ORDERS

I was overdue
to see my endocrinologist
and wasn't feeling well,
so I set-up a visit.
After checking my vitals,
we sat down to talk.
You look well,
he said,
but a tan covers many things.
We'd been doctor/patient
for many years
and usually spoke
about what aging men speak about:
pussy, growing old, and death.
He had me by ten years
and so was closer
to the aging and death part,
but was so gentle and funny
it made me feel further away
from those processes.
Tell me,
he continued,
what you've been eating?
He stopped me
after the third item.
What was that
again? he asked.
I repeated the name
of the woman.
Oh, her,
he began. Don't
eat that--she's
sugar coated
with an inside
of arsenic.
Really,
I replied. Damn.
You know that, he said,
sounding a little pissed,
most of the good fucks are.
I know it's easy
for me to say,
but just stop it; don't
do it. I want
to see you in a month.

I walked out of his office,
lit a smoke,
and made my way
home. I'm going to live,
I said to myself.
But no one
would be
very happy
about that.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013

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