DOPE THAT'S BEEN STEPPED ON, AND STEPPED ON...

Let those silly romantics yearn
for days long ago
when beds held a virginal bliss
of a love yet to be unspooled
and unspoiled
by our all too human delusion
of a life in its earliest embryo
of innocence & safety.

America, too, the idea of,
has been cut, stepped on,
so many times,
you barely feel it, now,
except to feel cheated.
Once, pure, perhaps,
in the tents of chiefs
and those with lust
in their hearts
for adventure
carved trails over mountains
rock-ribbed from shore
to praire to shore
carrying banjos singing
with disbelief
and daring--
now reduced to a mathematics
naked of forests & rivers,
indulging earth's moods
whether scorched or flooded,
holding aces & eights
inside capillaries of sin,
tricked-out on Saturday nights
fucking any floppy breasted
sacrificial whore in sight.

Instead I'll choose to remember
going uptown to discover
dope so good
it was sold in fat
deuces & tray bags,
cut so honest
it bordered on religion
allowing me
to come down
from the cross
and up to sit in God's palm
amidst his opium breath
and golden spun dreams.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2020

COMING CLEAN

For Puma P. who midwifed this poem.

Stealing from a cancer patient
didn't take a lot of thought;
in fact,
it required no thinking:
here was the drug; and
here I was;
and I was alone
with all those morphine bottles
staring at me
and whispering:
take me, no,
take me, no,
what about me?
I took out my syringe-
an old glass & steel needle job--
& plunged it
into the heart
of the stopper.
She was an old woman,
ancient really,
her skin like yellowed papyrus,
gray tufts of hair
haphazard on her pillow.
Surely,
she was on her way
out.

Her nurse & her niece
(who was kind enough to bring me),
were in an outer room
discussing her care,
her end of life care, & here
I was just starting
my beginning of life care
in the year of our Lord, 1970,
a stone's throw from New Orleans,
in 100 degrees, 100% humidity summer,
& I needed to be cool,
to get straight, to buy myself
a few days to plan
for my future.
I'm sure, if I was able
to ask her, & if she was able
to respond, she'd be
more than happy to exchange
her comfort
for my safety.
No doubt she'd want
to buy me more time.

I still think
of that old lady
from time to time
looking down
from heaven
& seeing me
still busily
at work
turning out
poem after poem
after poem
knowing
what a wise investment
she made.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2020For Puma P who mid-wifed this poem

A JUNKY EXPLAINING HIS MOTIVATION AND RATIONALE IN THE MIDST OF A PANDEMIC WITH ALL THE INTELLIGENCE HE CAN BRING TO BARE

Fuck the virus.
I gotta cop.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2020

GETTING STRAIGHT IN A WORLD OF CROOKED DREAMS

takes an awful amount of work--
and I should know.
For over half a century--off
and on--I've sought & found myself
in the white lady's embrace,
but it wasn't easy.
We junkies are said to be a lazy lot,
by those Mayflower noses
who sniff our detached delinquency
with disdain, but our lives spent
in pursuit of heavenly abstractions
belie that.

Pretty much,
it's a sunup to sundown gig:
You ain't got it, ya have ta get it;
ya get it, you have ta use it;
ya use it, ya have ta have more...
and more...
and more...
unless ya have money & connects up the ass,
but even then other predators lurk--
just ask Michael or Prince or Seymour.

Usually, we must go amidst the savages
before Morpheus is tightly tucked
in your pocket, or sock, or under the balls,
before we get to our sanctity
to take him out & play; before he curls
against our thirsty cells; before
we can feel alright & safe
in a world not of our own making,
we first need get out the bellows,
and anvil, and hammer to straighten
a steel pretzel soul into
its reptilian progenitor who then
can dial a number or slither out
to cop...and cure.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2020

FORT KNOX, CHRISTMAS EVE, & MOM

Ft. Knox
was easier to heist
than was my mother's passion.
Her cunt defied
global warming,
& her heart was tighter
than a frog's ass--
and that's waterproof!
She was so cold
that at the dinner table,
(if & when she made dinner),
we wore gloves.

You might be thinking
this is a strange poem
to be writing Christmas Eve--
on any "Eve" for that matter.
But to those,
who've never been in a madhouse,
or behind a wire
in a police cruiser or lock-up,
or who've stood on a line
hoping to be medicated,
or a cop-line
hoping to be medicated,
or in a hospital bed
hoping to be medicated,
to those & for those
I reply:
good luck to you
& may the bordom
be kept at bay
from the wolves
that at midnight howl
& prance
under a blood red moon.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

STEAM HEAT

A serpent's hiss
in the pipes
of my old brownstone
in Greenwich Village
on a freezing February--
only it's November
& we are caught
with our pants down
around the ankles,
& our balls,
made of brass,
clangs against a stiff cold radiator.

But the sound is enough
to alert the blood
that soon
very soon
it will morph
into a St. Bernard
carrying a keg of brandy
around its big furry neck,
as the steel warms.

And that hiss
is enough to settle you,
locate you,
like a bag of dope in your pocket
right after you cop,
the sickness at bay,
& you lean back into it
knowing it won't take long
to be enveloped
in that cocoon of warmth,
made well,
flushing the zero
from your bones--
not as lovely
as opium vapors
perhaps,
but a drift
by any other means
is still
a drift
into the
ease. You light
a cigarette,
put on some Monk,
and wait.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

SOMEBODY'S GONNA DIE

first in this race
pitting me against
my brother.
I saw him yesterday
& it seems like
he's winning; he got fat,
sluggish, lumbering,
winded, stuggling
for air on his flight
up a starecase to see me.
For so many reasons
I can't let that happen:
who would I talk to,
laugh with,
get angry at,
believe I'm better than?
And
I never did him any favors
turning him onto dope
when I was young
& he was younger.

Seventeen years ago
I got clean
while he kept at it,
wanting to do more research
on addiction
& dependence
& being dead
while breathing.
And now
I merely have
diabetes,
congestive heart failure,
& COPD
emphysema
which puts me
at a disadvantage.
We had learned
that in our family
sickness was lauded;
the prize
was attention;
you did less
with more;
the dream was extended,
the womb elongated,
the warm float
endless.
Taking care of ourselves
only led
to taking care of others
and who really wants
to do that.

We narrowed our worlds
to only two,
racing each other
to the grave.

Stay tuned.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

THERE IS NO GREATER THRILL

for a drug addict
than finding a drug
that you thought
had skipped out
on you.
Today,
it was a baby aspirin,
81 miligrams
in a tiny yellow Beyer dot
that helps thin my blood
in my heart holy clogged universe.
It was hiding
behind my coffee pot
and the thick black cord
connecting it
into the socket
behind that.
I had thought
I'd looked there yesterday
but musta missed it after
looking on the floor,
gas range and crack
between the icebox
& cleaning cabinet.
Shit, I'd said then,
and shook out
another pill.

It's not that I think
about medications
of all kinds
but obsess about them too.
If I wasn't taking drugs,
if I wasn't sick
who would I be?

Drugs have been my savior.
Drugs have been my confidant,
my muse, my benefactress and
my regulator; they've been the elixer
for this coward's blood:
They've gotten me up
in the morning & coaxed me into bed
at night giving me purpose
& dreams in this hellish game
of Truth or Consequences.

Soon, if I do everything right
or nothing at all, a door will open
on its own.
I've stashed Dramamine
every place I could think of
just in case.
Call me crazy
or call me Ishmael, I don't care.
But prepared
I will be.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

REMINISCENCE & REALIZATION

A finger,
the pinky,
has been lost
in the cooker
once you've tasted
dope.
You'll always
remember
what it looked like,
but you'll never,
never ever never ever
be able
to get it
back.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

FUCK WALTER MISCHEL

and his marshmellow test.
Who in their right mind
would wait a year to eat
two marshmellows when
you can eat one now?
And that's supposed to tell me
who will cure cancer
and who will die of cancer?
Gimme the marshmellow
now. I've been
a heat seeking
guided pleasure missle
before I knew what pleasure was:
put a bag of dope,
a scotch neat,
a jelly bean or two or three, or a hundred thousand,
or Milky Way,
a piece of ass, a pair of tits,
three of a kind, or Royal Flush,
even a parting of lips
in front of me,
and I'm a gonner.
How about a warm apple pie
cradling a Hagan-Daz scoop of vanilla--
I'd crawl over my mother
to get next to that.
Wait a year!? Are you outta yer mind!?
I want to get the fuck outta me now,
motherfucker. What is pleasure about?
I want to lose myself; I want to get lost:
Lost in wine, in women, in poetry, in song.
That is how you find things
out. You lose control, you go crazy...
for a second, a week, a month, years.
Unfortunately,
most don't.
What horrible lives
they must lead.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

A LITTLE MORE DOPE, PLEASE

Got enough kindness,
thank you very much.
Food, uhuh,
got plenty of that, too.
Money? OK
with that.
A woman? You kiddin?
I'll pass.
Got my four walls,
some paper,
and a Bic--
if I need em.
It's dreams, man,
that I'm short of;
and I'm getting old-old,
so old that my old dreams
have gotten tired, too,
and can't make the leap
into my head
without some help.
So...
pass the dope, wouldya?
I've got the spike&spoon,
I've got the cotton&belt,
a glass of water rests
on my table & I've got the will
to sleep&encourage
rebellion
damning what separates me
from the dimming light.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

SHE LOVED

shooting dope
and eating
Devil Dogs
and digging
White Light/White Heat.
She was
a handful.
She'd touch
D'Lugoff's balls
as he let us in
on Latin Night
Mondays at The Village Gate;
and placed a rose
on Simone's piano
because she wanted to.
She made her fix
by hustling
as a nude model
at SVA
but wouldn't fuck
the professor painter
of the class
no matter his name
or his threats.
Her name was Barbara
and she lived
on Pineapple Street
in Brooklyn Heights
and she died
before I could tell her
all she did for me.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

A PETRI DISH OF MURMURED MADNESS

Eye
droppers
& dollar collars.
Rubber
nipples.
Book matches
twined
& humping
each to each.
Spikes
dull
rusty
blood caked,
but O
so necessary.
Black carbon
underbellies
of spoons.
White ladies.
Dope sick.
A warm November
evening, '69.

Let's dance.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

MY BROTHER

is sick.
His life
is littered
with addiction
like a NYC subway
is blanketed with disease.
My family tree
has syringes
hanging off the branches.
And each branch
has fucked each other
royally: absence, suffocation,
adultery, lies, betrayals, coke,
weed, booze, pills, and
that grandmaster,
heroin. Arms shot,
noses gone, lungs coal mined,
jobs destroyed, homes foreclosed,
cars repossessed, heirlooms pawned.
Few
have made it out
at any age,
but I did.
I got lucky.
After 50 years
of trying to fill
an inside straight,
I changed the game.
I found fear,
healthy fear.
I did not want
to die. Not
at 52, not
like this;
not then;
not now
at 68.

My brother
is stuck
in an addict's nightmare:
too easy to cop,
too hard to refuse.
His brain
is turning
to mush.
But after four years
I've persuaded him
to go into a program.
In all probability
it won't work,
but there's a shot
it will. If you're willing
to change the hand
& gamble in a game
where you don't know
the rules you might
get lucky
too.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

EVERY NIGHT IS DOPE NIGHT

Edgar waits
pen in hand
for his little girls
to visit
bringing
China White.
He sits
next to
a raven colored
sax player
who's trying
not to vomit.

He scribbles
between the cramps.
They hope
they trickle in
before the second set.
Everything's green
in this bucket
of blood
saloon.

Outside
it's snowing.
A white carpet
lays between
uptown &
downtown
on the south side
of heaven,
one stop
from Hell.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

RIMBAUD PHONES ME ON A SLOW NIGHT

at two a.m.--
never a good sign
--and says,
"fuck poetry,
I ain't no kid anymore;
gonna run guns
to Ethiopia.
Why don't ya join me?"
(Fucking "call waiting" I mutter).
I'm on the phone
with Poe,
I tell him.
"Fuck him, man,
he's still hung-up
on that Lenore chick."
Which was true,
but I ain't gonna tell
Poe that. Besides,
I've got a few ghosts myself.
I'll call ya back, I sez,
but knew I wouldn't cuz
he'd just romance me
and I never could stand that.
And just when I was gonna tell Edgar
to can it, forget about her,
Baudelaire barges in
with a bottle of green,
loaded, telling me our cocks
were really hands
on a clock's dials and time
was shit anyway.
I gulp a shot down
and forget about Edgar
and we tumble into
each other and hope Verlaine
doesn't show, but he does,
and wants to nibble our ears,
but Charlie wouldn't let him,
and I tell him to call Rimbaud back
but after he said that that crazy sonofabitch shot him
I gave him a drink and thought about taking the phone
off the hook but had another drink myself and Charlie
started reading Spleen to us and our eyes bugged
and in she walked...
parting the curtains
with that hip of hers,
knifing it, all beads
and black panties
and a stamp collector's
bag in the palm of her hand...uptown dope
she whispered
and slipped a nail
under its lip.

It takes a special woman
to have men forget who
is crazy and who
they are and listen
to music from other
rooms.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

A STORIED HISTORY

I come out
of a long
& proud
tradition
of addiction.
My mother
was the first
to have her mouth
opened
to greet
a five milligram
valium rolling
off the conveyer belt
back in the fifties
before the word "generic"
was coined.
My father
was pretty good
with the codeine
& scotch;
he was also quick
with the belt
whistling through
his pant loops
& whipping me
& my brother. He
was so good
at hiding his shit,
he was voted dad
of the year
by those Jews
of appearances.

The blood of cowards
runs through our veins.
Blissfully,
we treat each day
as a stranger
to be feared: Like you,
today, arriving
on my doorstep
weary & beaten-up
from your long long journey,
wanting to believe
you've found
a more forgiving home
only to find another
searching heart
instead.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

PART OF CHAPTER 10--THE DEPARTURE LOUNGE

“You think about dyin?” I continued, “That cross your mind?”

“‘Every third thought is that of the grave.’ Sure I think about it.”

“Ain’t pretty, is it?”

“No, it ain’t pretty…Nobody dies with any dignity, the only thing we can do is live with some.”

“Who said that?”

“I just did.”

“My mom had a tough death, but I don’t think about her much; I think about my old man from time to time.
Him I still think about. My mother was like ice in her cardboard box, just as angry dyin as she was livin, but my ol’ man…”

“Yeah, your ol’ man was a prick, but he had some heart.”

“Yeah, he was a prick, but he did have some heart, and humor, and a whole lotta bullshit.”

“I still haven’t forgotten you not comin to my father’s funeral, man; I was all by myself…”

“I had a needle in my arm in those years…”

“Who the fuck cares how you got there, but you shoulda got there…but my mom went out wearing head-phones, listening to “Ruby, My Dear,” and sucking down Courvoisier.”

“Not bad.”

“No, not bad…I gotta get high now just listenin to you. Why didya take me there?”
He smoked as much weed as I did cigarettes.
“Ah shit, Brazzie: Fucking phone sales?”

“What’s the difference?” he said as he tried to hold down the reefer. “It’s about survival; that’s all it’s ever been about,” he said, as he let it out. “You do the best you can with what you got. Period. End.”

“How the hell do you do that?”

“Not well.”

I wanted to be back on the massage table. I wanted to get high. I wanted Tina’s hands on me again. I wanted a spike in my vein. I would have settled for Hillary Clinton’s hands…no, no, not them, but somebody’s. Maybe a Percocet?…an Advil…Bayer, anyone?

“You’ll probably be good at it…”

“Oh, yeah…”

“Yeah, Heller; you spent your whole life honing your bullshit and now you have those poor fucks who have no one to talk to, who’s dying to have a conversation with somebody, anybody, to listen to you.”

“That’s great, man, thanks for sharin that…Sure, where the fuck they goin?…I’ll tell ya where I’m goin though—I’m goin ta bed…I’m gonna lie down, put a period on this fuckin day.”

“It’s a semicolon, Heller. It’s only a semicolon.”

(39-40 of pages 539)