HEY GOD, WHY DO YOU STILL ITCH IN THOSE PLACES HARD FOR ME TO SCRATCH? AND WHILE WE'RE AT IT, LET'S GET SOMETHING TO EAT

I'm an old fuck. Simple.
Supposed to be wise? Nah.
Supposed to be cool? Nah.
All things that ancients
are said to be, I'm not.
Now, I'm just a nervous wreck,
have to do more
with less.

You'd think
having gone
through a hundred Thanksgivings
with a hundred poisoned arrows
sticking from the breasts of turkeys,
and a hundred Christmas'
using my balls for sleigh bells,
I'd stop asking, "why?"
But you'd be wrong.

Another one of life's suckers
sitting on the edge of my bed
balancing a tit in one hand,
and a ringer in the other.
I hide in the darkness
between dreams watching the frost
weeping on the gravediggers muddy boots.

My weatherman is Lear.
Unlike Rasknolikove,
I've done nothing wrong,
yet want to be punished.
I'm one of few remaining
hip white men: Mulligan
playing with Monk; singing harmony
with Jerry Lawson & The Persuasions;
thinking if I could sing like Roi
onto the white page I could escape
a bleached & bland topography.

And so, here I am,
sitting on the edge of the world
as we threaten to once again
blow it up, but that doesn't
bother me; that has never bothered me;
a recalcitrant fool
is my calling card,
no matter the age.
No,
it's all the people I've loved
who parade by & drift away
when I want to grab & hold.

But I'm an old fuck
with arthritic fingers
juiced with memories
and confusion.

Listen, hon,
I'll have the fries with that
and don't forget the hot sauce, please,
and if you can double bag it
I'd appreciate it--I've got a long way
to go. And
here's a little bit extra,
for you. Thanks...(Usually,
that works.)

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2020

MY DREAMS HAVE CHANGED THEIR CLOTHES

I dream now
of living within a Xanex,
big as a cloud,
rolling above my landscape
as I float
from dusk to dawn
battling those forces
that wants to pin me
against the ropes
& bring me back to earth;
or sometimes I'm strolling
in the park, amidst a blizzsrd
of heroin dissolving
on my tongue, taking in
the wonderment of nature
& man married
in an architecture of need;
a Mt. Kilamanjaro of reefer,
buds as big as your fist,
in their rainbow splendor
sits outside my back door.
waiting for my pleasures,
my forays into the wild...
steeling myself,
like a Kamikazie pilot,
into the wind...

then,
behind Venetian Blinds
of fear, I'd have an Uzi,
semi-autos wiht scopes,
hunting rifles, pistols,
grenades, IED's, bazookas,
flame throwers, Bowie knives,
blackjacks, brass knuckles,
& I'd wait...& plan...& wait
as these Saturday night invaders,
these revelers from the sticks,
who had crossed over bridges,
gone through tunnels,
traveled from corn fields,
or desert oil wells,
their voices skunky drunken loud,
girlish puberty, whiny, rageful,
slinging curses
as if they've driven trucks,
at boys playing men
and I'd shoot the vowels out of their teeth,
gnash the consonents from their throats,
dilate then extinguish the light
from their pupils,
and granade their dumpster's maw...
I'd watch while their dumb lips
pushed out a wince
while their backbones cracked,
vertebrea crumbled, heart exploded,
hear their screams singing an aria
of disbelief leading
to a god-awful quiet...

As you can plainly see,
I've gotten better.

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

TRANSVESTITES & BUTCHERS

For Hannah Sullivan

I am a lover
of words; I seek
fantasies through
metaphors, beauty
through suggestion.
It is a time
when gravediggers
wait for the earth
to dismiss its frost;
a time when ladies wait
in ladies garments
for New Jersey truckers
to grab a handful of cock
before their I95 mirror
of masculinity.
They carry their hairy husk
of doubt
and dribble from a slack mouth
of evening's fast lanes.

I'm in Florent
sitting next to a high yellow princess.
We listen to the nightime swish
of meatpacking blood
slicking cobblestones maroonish,
thick with animal stink.
I've been to The Vanguard
and heard Cecil solo.
She listened to a different music.
We're both hungry.
We will both go home
but not together.

A limp wind kisses
against boredom.
A bluetit crab
curbed by rumors
of the sea
burrows deeply
into my lover's dreams.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

THE HEAT IS ON

There will be coat hangers
in the B-B-Q
roasting inside the wombs
of newly minted teenagers
come this July 4th;
black bodies smoking
across lunch couners
of shame; queers
hustling white-haired
Senate tourists on docks
fetid with the scum
of dreams tipped overboard
lapping its splintered spew
against faggot piers
of politics.

I'd invest
in condoms
if I could
get a hardon--
which I can't.

I would watch
the fireworks
if I could
get inside
a cannon.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

SUMMERTIME

For PP--each in our neighborhood's jungle

To be smoking reefer
& sipping a beer
on a hot stoop
cooling our heels
is one of the more sublime favors
bestowed in this concrete womb
of a city amidst the squalls
of summertime heat.
Poems are squeezed
from the sewers;
love is laced
in this Petri dish
of hard won escapes.
Each other's dreams
drips down the sticky legs
of denim & popsicle sticks.

You live within
windowsills of fame
and home has become
a bed of thorns.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

WHEN MY EX-WIFE WAS BORN

I was already in love
with another woman.
In fact,
I was crazy in love with her.
It moved pieces of me around.
But then,
junk took over,
and made the living
dead & the dead more real
than the living,
but the dead didn't dance
for decades--
until my ex
became my now
& now became new
& shiny.
But then,
the junk took over.
And darkness fell
on a soft
& useless
dick.
These women,
loves of my life,
were born three days
but twenty-six years
apart.
One was straight-laced New Jersey finishing school;
the other radical Japanese artist Nagasaki poor.
The common denominator
was me...
& poetry.
Always is.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

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

EVERYDAY YOU PASS BY

everything you need
to know

about everything
there is.

II

Residues.
Kick ball
then doorways.
A darkness
is at the top
of the stairs,
but money too.
Need
is your gravity
today.

III

Dreams
in a book
bag.

IV

I gave you
a hundred,
I know
I gave you
a hundred,
I only had
a hundred
and now,
I don't
have it
anymore.

V

I fell
in love
when I
was little
and now love
sucks the life
out of me
as I grow
impatient.

VI

One should look
harder
at what
one knows.

VII

Her dress
has its first stain
of journeys
to come.
His lips
hang
over his teeth
like shadows.

VIII

Slugs sun
in the summer
slime;
they have
no job
yet.

IX

Vespers
from a Harmon
mute; a jazz
musician
fingers
the hem
of a garment
whose mother
doesn't know
where she is:
this circle,
this time,
now.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

MY JOB IS TO DREAM

words: bread & marbles,
apricots & onions,
moles & Minotaurs.
A shaft of light
dancing across minnows
wet with belief
& the smell
of religion.
Honeybees leaning along
the Queen's thigh
suckling a thickening liquid
sprung from the head of Zeus.
How else
to reconcile
the people
& the rocks?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

MARY TYLER MOORE IS DEAD

and I can't say I'm sorry.
I spoke to her once
while she was in Canada
filming some bullshit
and I was holed up
in my Greenwich Village pad
bloody and bandaged and minus
four toes and still trying
to dream and she
was in a phone booth
with a second or two,
she told me,
between takes.
I'd tried for years
to get my memoir to her: Confessions
Of An Uncontrolled Diabetic.
I tried through my doctors,
her publicist, her husband's colleagues,
and finally through her assistants.
The years were 1982 through '85
and she was living in the San Remo.
I was convinced that between the insulin shocks,
insulin shots, piss testing, food deprivations,
depressions from sugar highs, anger from the lows,
a commonality of Brooklyn, doctors, fears and
foreboding, she'd get behind the work if
she read it, though I never particularly liked
her work: too pretty, too perky, too sweet,
too American, but, hey, she held some ins
to my outs.
She was worth a shot.
Getting published,
getting validated,
getting out of this thing
called "life" was worth
whatever lies
I had to tell.
An actor friend of mine
knew one of her assistants
and so I traipsed up to the San Remo
and dropped the book off for her
with the militarily clad doorman.
After a year
I forgot about it.
And then a phone call
on a rain slicked day.
She was probably sorry
she didn't get my answering machine.
After my hello
she told me who she was.
"Sorry," she said,
"I can't get involved with this."
I just held the receiver.
"Best of luck," she said,
and hung up.
I could hear her voice catch.
I heard, "I'd really like to, but..."
kinda tone.
I'd suspected the work cut too close
to Mary's bone and wasn't surprised
a decade later when she wrote about
her alcoholism and the less savory
parts of her so called charmed life.
"Fuck her," I said at the time
and went back to what I did best:
hide
behind words
& substances.

I might have another eleven years
to go--give or take--and am not displeased
about the arc my life has taken
before and after Mary.
Redford must have sensed, too,
her drunken selfishness and filmed it.
Really,
it was her most honest role.
I should know:
I've played it
once or twice
myself.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

A LOVE POEM TO C.E. MORGAN

You're playing ping-pong
with my innards; stirring
the black abyss
between dreams.
How do you know
so much
about me,
and my place
astride the grave?
Ssh,
don't tell me, don't
kill it. Not now,
wait
'til I finish.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

LOVE DREAM #263

My eyes are glued
to the black tar
& cement
these days
when I walk:
afraid to trip
I look for cracks,
I look for fissures,
I look for danger.
I also look for coins
and bills and bags
of heroin--but that's
another story.
Today I was just looking
for the curb
as I crossed
University & 11th
and made
the steep climb;
this is NYC after all
& disasters & likeliness
are an old married couple.
I made the ascent
and picked up my eyes
in triumph & jubilation.

And there you were
boring those schizoid orbs of yours
into me
and smiling shyly
snug in your faded
fitted Canada Goose.
It took a moment
to take you in
and instead looked
for their hip arm patch
thinking it would tell me
what is authentic
& what is a knock-off.

Why are you so surprised?
you asked, you knew I'd be here.
Your right hand held onto
a shopping cart
as you followed
my eyes
with your own.
It's empty, Savage,
you know me: No food,
no clothing, no saviors,
no nothing,
just me. I would have
brought my dog,
but I can't.
He's dead
you know?
But maybe later. Maybe
I will later...
or maybe I'm through
with animals; they're much
too kind, you said, and smiled
a smile so rueful
it made my bones ache.

A few bums looked in the basket
but you shooed them away. A car
skidded to a stop. Its tires screeched,
a smell of rubber laced the air.
I might like New York, you said,
but maybe I won't; you know
how small town I am...
if I don't there are other places to go,
I have lots of money.
Can we go up to your place now? you asked.
Yes, we can, let's go home.
Not exactly, you said.
Not exactly, I echoed.
I knew, like you knew,
there was nothing up there either,
but it was a better nothing
than we had a moment ago.
I went to take your cart
and no resistance was offered.
When we crossed the street I didn't
look down--my self-consciousness
had the better of me
and stumbled once, twice,
but quickly righted the ship
and noticed:
I was able to breathe
again.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

THE SURREALISTIC PILLOW ON THE COUCH

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbcMa3is-vw

Church bells in winter.
The grass bleeds.
A thick sack of fluid
begs for prophecy.
Too much rhyme
in reason.
Too much love
in a hate drenched world.
Too bad, Grace,
you and Abbie
couldn't levitate
The White House.
Does language
create dreams?

We had ducked out
for a smoke
between periods.
If we really got froggy
we might never go back
that day. We'd take
our chances our parents
not give a damn. For what
is history if not
to be counted on?
As long as we could play ball
& hit on chicks
we were never questioned.
Acid began seeping
into our lives.
Colors were better than NBC.
Peacocks strutted inside
our brains. San Francisco
became a place
of possibility. Pot
needed to be strained
& sifted.
Molecules rearranged morals.

I thought I'd never love
myself better
than how you loved me.
And I loved me
not at all.
The music coaxed me out.
I slid on the tracks
of complexity
and did what only I could do:
understand myself--
an impossible task
given my stuttering.

Simple things
I've had to learn
last; I found
a burr-like comfort...
It was like going home
& finding it
empty and could smoke
a joint in peace.

"Surrealism eventually becomes realism,"
a friend who was smarter than me said
who got it from a friend who was smarter than him.
I never argue with that kind of lineage.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

ALL WE REALLY WANT TO DO

is make it
back home.
It could be
bleak there, too,
but you're alone,
gratefully
alone.
Perhaps,
there are fewer dreams
resting on a razor's
bubble, perhaps
they're holding on
for dear life
which is no longer
so dear,
but all of the other signposts
telling you
of how insignificant
you are
are out
there
littering
the eyes
of others;
there's only death
outside that door
& you can dance
with yourself,
inside
the way
it always
was
as you let
the music take hold,
and give yourself
a twirl--
for a few hours
anyway.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

JIMI HENDRIX'S HANDS

came to me
in a dream
last night.
They were
long & black
and feathery.
They played
with the grace
of eels
fingering
my strings;
my dreams
moaned
like Bessie Smith.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

A HARD DEATH OF DREAMS IN NYC--FROM CHAPTER VII: CONFESSIONS OF AN UNCONTROLLED DIABETIC

New York City is saturated with dreams by people of all ages. Everyday, those dreams are crushed out, if they’re lucky, or shit rubbed into them if they’re not. Numbers are big. Lotto is big. People are working at what they don’t want to be: There are actresses as waitresses, writers as bartenders, actors as cabdrivers, dancers as horticulturists. All of them are making the rent while waiting for a phone call. When the phone rings, it could be from your agent, a publishing house, Vegas, Hollywood, Broadway, or God. Usually, it’s your mother complaining about her hemorrhoids and why you haven’t called. It’s such a tough town that your dreams have to be tougher, more tenacious, and harder to extinguish. If you give them up you’re no longer a child, you’re just an adult with an asshole and an opinion, and Christ, everybody has those.

I opted out of group. I felt I had had enough. I didn’t want to hear the same people with the same voices enunciating the same problems, including myself. “Shut the fuck up and get on with it,” I said to myself. Perhaps the decision to leave group was evidence of a further withdrawal from humanity where everyone was allowed to be human, painfully human. I, however, was leaning away from that. My next screenplay, A Case of Insanity, would testify to that. What is closer to the truth, and what I believe today, is that the addict (me) on an unconscious level always desire a substance or substances that will allow them to return to the fantasy. They are never neutral and each and every decision or rationalization that turns you away from a structure or situation that represents “health” or the possibility of staying in “reality” is a step, perhaps a small step at first, back to the abyss.
A Case of Insanity was a fictionalized recounting of the Son of Sam murders. In it, I tried to sum up the narcissistic and dangerous 1970’s. It was a cold, ice-like work that should have been directed by Fassbinder, in black and white. There was no one in the work that the audience could root for, let alone identify with. It was self-interest that paved the way for the decade of mergers, consolidations, ice, cocaine, and money, that was but a prelude to our run toward shallowness and homogenization.

The latter part of September, a thin strip of magnesium was lit: flash/poof. When that happened in science class, a blinding flash occurred and then, like The Lone Ranger riding out of town, you Hi-Ho’d Silver’d it to another class. However, when that flash occurred in my life, it lay smoldering in my brain for weeks, sometimes months.
A friend to whom I’d given my first screenplay, Coney Island, had in turn given it to a big-time producer, and he called me. He told me that my script was one of three being considered for production. He was to have lunch with him later that week and, since he’d done many favors for this man, was sure that he could push my interests further. The flash occurred, and I was not to wait. I wanted to work harder on A Case of Insanity. I went out for coffee to fuel the effort.
I bounded down the flights of stairs and out the door into the afternoon bustle. Nothing could go wrong. I was invincible again, a king in spite of myself. There, parked in front of my building, sitting in a blue, beat-up Kharman Ghia reading, was a beautiful Asian young woman. “Jesus, this is too good to be true. Everything fits,” I said to myself. Fate grabbed me by my balls, and led me toward the car.
She looked like my alter ego sitting there. She was tranquil, self-contained, and absorbed. I was like an inert gas possessing no valance. “Ah, excuse me,” I said, bending my knees slightly to get on a level with her window. Her face turned slowly toward me. “Christ,” I said to myself, “she’s more beautiful full-face.”
“Excuse me,” I said again, “are you an actress?”
“No, I’m not,” she replied pleasantly enough, with no hint of being put off or arrogant.
“You’re not, huh?...Well, maybe you should be.” I pressed on. “Listen, I know this might sound a bit strange but I just finished a screenplay where my protagonist meets and falls in love with a woman of Asian background, and I’m not sure whether some of the scenes I wrote work. Would you mind reading it and maybe we could talk about it later?”
“I’m not an actress, and I’ve never read a screenplay before.”
“You read; I see you reading,” I said, and we both laughed. “That’s all you really have to do. Either it will sound right to you or it won’t,” I continued, pushing her.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so,” she said, trying to let me off easily and without too much discomfort for either one of us.
I was not to be deterred. “Why don’t you give me your number?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Stop saying that, will you? You’re not married, are you?”
“No, I’m not,” she answered.
“Well, I’ll give you my number. How’s that?”
“No, that won’t work. Let’s just leave it at that.”
“Do you live in the neighborhood?”
“Yes, not far.”
“Good, think about what I said. I’m sure we’ll meet again or, if you change your mind, you can contact me through The Cedar Tavern across the street. Everyone knows me there. My name’s Savage and,” I turned around pointing, “I live right here, 2-A.” I looked back at her, smiled and said, “O.K. take care of yourself.”
“You too,” she said. I turned and walked away. By the time I returned with a container of coffee it was after six p.m. (the time when those who play the alternate street parking game in Manhattan can safely leave their cars without getting a ticket or towed), and she was gone. As I was going up the stairs, I thought about being out there the same time tomorrow, but, once I got upstairs, I couldn’t wait for tomorrow. I wrote a note and put it on her windshield with my phone number, asking her to call. I got upstairs and it began raining. It was the kind of rain that stopped and started again. When it stopped, I changed the note. It began raining, again. I changed the note. Again, it rained. “Fuck this,” I said to myself. I set my alarm for six a.m. I woke up, wrote the same note and left it under her wipers. I forgot about the trees, they leak. The Kharman Ghia and wet note was still there; I ran upstairs and changed the note.
Two weeks later, I saw her again. I went up to her car and leaned down. “How come you didn’t call?” I asked, trying not to startle her.
She turned her head slowly in my direction and said, “I’m still deciding.”
“It’s a good thing I didn’t need open-heart surgery. Well, how about it? Will you read it, or what?”
“I’m going away to my sister’s in Cape Cod. I guess I could read it then, up there.”
“Wait, don’t go nowhere. I’ll get you a copy. And call me when you’ve finished. My number’s on the first page,” I turned to go but quickly added, “What’s your name, by the way?”
“Jean.”

A month later and I heard from no one: not Jean, not the producer, and not from my friend who gave it to him. I decided to call him. I’ve learned, most painfully, that when you have to call “them,” “them” being jobs, producers, women, in short, any person that you want or expect something from, it’s usually no go and no good. The answer you were hoping was “yes” is invariably “no.” This time was no different. “Norm, I’m sorry,” he began, “I made a mistake. I’ve been meaning to call you back, but I’ve been busy, ya know? Anyway, I misinterpreted what he had said to me initially, I’m sorry.”
“That’s O.K.” I said to him. “You only heard what we both wanted to hear. Anyway, at least you tried for me. Most wouldn’t have done that. I appreciate it.”
After two years of waiting and hoping, I resigned myself to the fact that Coney Island, was a dead issue.

I needed a gig. I continued writing A Case of Insanity, but needed to make rent. I was friendly with a guy from Handelsman’ group who was a lawyer, whose family owned banks, who wanted to fool around with television stardom, and thought with the rise of cable and public access stations, he could become a TV talk show personality, eventually being picked-up by the more traditional networks. Really, he enjoyed fucking society dames and this segued nicely into that. He asked me to write for him for nothing until he made it, and he’d give a few bucks as a stipend per week. When I asked him if he knew anyone in the bar business that he could introduce me to he said, “Yeah, sure my cousin has a very successful spot he just opened. It’s right around the corner from the studio. We’ll go after the show for a few drinks. I’ll introduce you.”
Steve Oren, was a half partner in Oren & Aretsky’s. It was one of the more successful watering holes on Third Avenue, between 84th and 85th Streets. It was the saloon of destination for The New York Yankees, Knicks, and Rangers from the late 70’s until the early 80’s. Oren, once the male model for Winston cigarettes, had been married to Jennifer O’Neal. After meeting me, he introduced me to his other half, Ken Aretsky, who hired me. He started me at first with two shifts but shortly expanded them to include brunch on Saturday and Sunday.
Where there are high-priced professional jocks, there are beautiful women, and where there are beautiful women, there are guys spending lots of money to be seen with them and, if they’re lucky, bed some of them down as well. It’s synergistic and combustible, while it lasts. Everyone who’s associated with the saloon makes money, and I was no exception. In fact, I made a lot of money because I knew what to do behind this kind of bar. I was fast, funny, but aloof. I remembered the customers, not by their names but by what they drank and how much they tipped. I manipulated most by knowing who they were and what they wanted and purposely crossing up their signals in conspiratorial exchanges and intelligent and funny repartee; and, like most bartenders I knew, stole. I poured generous amounts of whiskey into their glasses, bought the tippers drinks, and averaged between one-fifty and two hundred dollars per shift, cash. I also ate and drank for nothing during the time I spent there. The food was terrific, and the liquor top shelf.
My three compatriots, Kenny, John, and Barry had been working there for quite some time when I arrived. Kenny and John were bartenders and Barry was the head chef. There were many other people who worked there. There were two Chinese men who worked in the basement, for instance, who did nothing except peel potatoes for the hundreds of orders we received each night for French Fries, but it was those three with whom I grew close. Both Kenny and John were working to support themselves while they tried to do other things. In John’s case it was acting, in Kenny’s, writing.
It did not take me long to make the “Savage Rules” at the bar. No one, no matter how attractive the man or woman might be (unless they were regulars who left a large tip because they were hip to the fact it was your stool they were sitting on, and you needed to see a return on that piece of property), was allowed to stay at the bar waiting for “somebody” to come in without drinking. No one, was allowed to remain at the bar nursing a drink, or worse, a bottle of Perrier, for a period determined by how busy the night was; and no one could drink without tipping. At first, John and Kenny were amazed at some of my actions, but it made them money too so they didn’t complain.
The management was making so much loot they didn’t much care what we did. As long as they heard the cash register ringing, they usually backed our play. Aretsky, a slick Jewish boy from Long Island, dressed in Armani, always had his hand draped around the jocks who hung there, and was the public relations force behind the saloon. The athletes did make the saloon their home, and why not. They were treated like kings and “comped” for what they ate and drank. They made hundreds of thousands, in some cases millions, of dollars a year and never had to reach into their pockets to pay for anything. Interestingly enough, they tipped worse than jazz musicians. At least most jazz musicians had a reason. They worked sparingly and when they did, usually it was for “short money,” but these athletes, Christ! At first I tried to be humorous with them. “Hey, it’s O.K. to tip, I won’t say nothin’,” I’d say to those who would belly-up to my bar, but they were a dense lot, with a few exceptions, like Pinella from The Yankees and Esposito from The Rangers, who tipped and tipped well. Two incidents serve to illustrate their arrogance and density. The first was with Mr. October, Reggie Jackson. He’d come into the place, and we’d have to hang his white fur coat in a room in the basement and, store bottles of Miller Light just for him because he was one of their spokesmen. We’d lug it upstairs to serve him and whomever he happened to be with that evening. He would point to people he knew and motion for us to buy them drinks, which we did, of course. He never got a tab, and he’d leave us nothing. Finally, one evening, after running around for him for hours, he was getting up to leave and I went downstairs to bring up his coat. Handing it to him I said, “Reggie, I know the booze and food are free, but the service isn’t. That’s how we, I, make a living.” He handed the coat back to me, reached into his pocket, and handed me a buck. I handed it back. “Keep it,” I said to him.” He turned and walked out, shaking hands with a few people as he went.
The second incident happened during a Sunday brunch. It was kind of slow that day. I had the TV on to some football game and a few regulars were at the bar, drinking beer and eating some fries. There was one attractive blond woman, who I didn’t know, sitting further down, alone, sipping on a white wine. I had a seven dollar tab for her behind the bar. I ran tabs for everyone. Walt Frazier, or Clyde as he was known, double parked his Rolls outside the saloon and sauntered in. I said hello to him and he to me as I watched his eyes light upon the comely thing at my bar, fingering her wine glass. He went over to her, said something I couldn’t hear, and she rose to leave. Frazier began walking out of the bar when I stopped him.
“Clyde,” I began, nearly whispering, “she has a seven dollar tab here.”
He turned to her as she was going past him, obviously going to his Rolls, grabbed her elbow and said, “Pay your bill, I’ll wait in the car.” He rounded, and left.

Jean called and apologized for the time lapse between her taking the script, reading it, and getting back to me. I asked her to meet me at The Cedar Tavern where we could discuss it over drinks. I did much more drinking than talking about the script. I didn’t have much interest in the script at that time, but pretended, as I often did at any time, especially with women, that I meant what came out of my mouth. She told me that a ten year relationship was coming to an end. When I inquired further she was, I thought, purposely vague, although she did intimate that the guy she was seeing was wanted by many law enforcement agencies for questioning. When I probed, she resisted and said it would be better, for both of us, if she didn’t say anymore. I usually took what other people said, especially about criminal enterprises, with a grain of salt. Coming from the background I did, it was hard for me to imagine how this diminutive, cultured, and very attractive Chinese woman could be involved with real tough guys. Besides, by not telling me too much she was being loyal, which I admired and respected. I walked her a few blocks to where she was staying and kissed her goodnight, and we said we’d continue this at a time in the very near future.
Being involved with so many different things on different levels did not stem my anxiety from escalating. I began asking the types of questions that smack of self-pity and lead, eventually, to the short and sweet anthem sung by the many drunks and drug addicts that I know, “Fuck-it.” ‘All those years that I’d worked, for what? All those years that I’d abstained from drugs, for what? Where had it all gotten me?’ These questions led to more shallowness. It had just made me more aware of what people had that I didn’t. In fact, it was more painful. Self-pity is one of the more nauseating indulgences that a person can perform, whether silently or for public consumption, it smells of the worst kind of sentimentality and corruption. I have engaged in it more times than I like to remember. It usually is accompanied by a drink or a drug which serves to ease the slivers of razor blades as they cut the memory of recriminations and regrets.
Handelsman, sensing my deterioration, cut down on my sessions rather than increase them. He saw I was no longer able to concentrate for long periods of time without getting distracted. I would say to him that I was feeling like a woman who goes to the seashore and tries to put just the amount of shells she can carry in her apron and take them back to her home to get through another day. My days were being lived only to get through. The constant drinking had begun to take its toll and wither away a resolve that I’d spent a great deal of time and energy to secure.
I began to think: If I just smoke a little reefer again it would take less of a toll on my body.
I was about to unlock a bolt.

pgs 144-148--From Chapter VII: JUNK SICK: CONFESSIONS OF AN UNCONTROLLED DIABETIC

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

IT'S A DRAG

to discover
what you're sure
is so
is so
wrong.
Brilliance
is never
so dull
as when
it shines
only upon
oneself
and all those
made-up
places.
Against
no light
it remains
black &
unenlightened.

Take dreams
for instance.
Mel Brooks
& Roman Polanski,
Woody Allen
& Ingmar Bergman
had dreams.
They also
had years
of analysis.
They also
read; they also
were genius'.
They knew dreams
had a navel
& knew
how to navigate
towards it.

It's dangerous
to go on belief
only in self
knowledge
especially
when there's nothing
tangible to hang
your hook on.
It's alright to suffer
alone,
but it's not alright
to inflict that suffering
on others
who love you.
It is one reason
the world is so full
of sadness.

I'm a teacher
by nature.
And a good one,
I believe.
I'm not, however,
an altruist.
I do have
selfish interests.
I'm most possessive
about you
& how you go about
the business
of living.
Yes, by all means
sound your depths;
and, yes, by all means
go down into it,
even if that implies
making mistakes.
I have to trust
that enough
of those mistakes
will lead you back
to me.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

TITS GALORE

They're proud,
they're pointy,
they're poised;
they bounce, they bump,
they undulate
like the air
on hot Georgia asphalt
on a long stretch of highway
in the dog days of August.
They flirt & tease,
they conjure
the boyhood spirits
of men.
They're in spandex,
latex, unisexed,
harnessed, haltered,
or loose
defying the whims
of gravity
& air pockets.

Some tits,
you couldn't find
with a compass,
while others
are a dairy factory.
All though
are lovely.
Lovely with the promise
of warm sweet syrup
spreading warmth
inside your belly.
Enough
to allow you
to close your eyes
and drift,
just drift.

And to think:
it's only June.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014

BREAKING OUR MAIDENS

Take all your plans,
all your schemes,
your handicapping,
take all your "sure bets,"
"locks,"
your systems,
your "definite s,"
your "absolutes,"
"no doubt about it,"
all your "don't worry,"
your "trust me, it's in,"
& shove them
right up
your darkened
bunghole.

Noir or rouge
could come up
a million times
in a row
or never,
you might roll
nothing but sevens
or seven out
before a point
is made.
Drawing
to an inside straight
might or might not
get filled
without rhyme
or reason
no matter
how much
you're able
to count.

Some are born
sucking
on enormous breasts
filled with sweetness
through endless nights
while others suck
an empty pouch
and get bounced
around liquored
lovers screaming
holiness & murder.

Each time
we do something
we break
our maidens.
Each race
is the first
we've run.
Tomorrow
might be the day
you get up
and find blood
in your stool,
or step on a President
on your way to work.

Nothing has worked
for me
the way I thought
it would
or should.
And even though
I've had my share
of good fortune,
especially with women,
I've not been that fortunate
with machinery, money,
or health.

If I get up there
and sit at the feet
of the gods
I'd ask them why
they've kept me
in this crap game
for as long as they have?
I'm guessin they'd shake their heads
& say: "We don't have a fuckin clue;
we really don't."

And that,
as they say,
is that.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014