JUST IN TIME FOR DINNER

I try to run my food consumption
like a good German runs his railroad:
ON TIME! Not just diabetes
nailed me to the cross,
but Ma & Pa whose world
didn't revolve around the sun,
but around a Lazy Susan.
But tonight, o boy,
tonight I was gonna feast...
Dine... Eat!...Grit-up! GO
FUCKING CRAZY!
I was sick at sticking
to strict diets & marginal fare--
not because of medical dictates,
but because my pockets were bare.
Tonight, they'll be no Heinz
baked beans/salami & eggs,
or Campbells Tomato slop
& Keebler Krackers crunched
on top like fake grated cheese;
and no peanut butter
& bullshit. No, not tonight.

Now, I ain't no fuckin chef,
but I can burn a little;
I can fry shit up
& make it happen
in the cast-iron skillet--
finish it off in the oven;
get that top char happening
& the bloody ooze
from the inside running
into that baked potato
slathered in butter
complemented by fresh
iceberg lettuce hearts,
Jersey tomato wedges
lapping up imported hazelnut
olive oil & Tuscany vinegar
& a hint of Dijon mustard.
O, man, gimme a glass
of Pelligrino with a lemon wedge
& call the undertaker--
I'm ready to go!

My man, Ramon,
cut me a one and half inch aged Ribeye
& I carefully culled the rest.
Exiting, I began to taste the dinner.
I started to salivate; drool
threatened to leak out a side of my mouth;
I made sure to swallow.

I prepared the salad & dressing,
heated the oven to 350 & inserted
one Idaho marvel which,
after 20 minutes took, cut open,
& spooned in an ungodly amount of butter
into its soul
& proceded to heat the skillet.
After dressing the Ribeye,
I flung a few drops of water
on the skillet--they popped,
& hissed; and when I lowered the red slab
of cow into the pan,
it sizzled.
The aroma of exceptional steak hitting
all the right senses.

Three minutes laer
I was sitting at my table,
watching the NBC evening world news with Lester Holt,
about to take a mouthful
of heaven...
when they came
relentlessly:
Hemorroids & rectal suppositories,
vaginal itches, penis carbuncles,
COPD & emphysema & breathing tubes,
toothless people talking out of their necks,
rasping gasping for a reason to live,
chair lifts, stair lifts, soul lifts,
menstration pads, piss pads, shit pads,
brain pads...Alzheimers leaking memories
and a thousand yard stare, Parkinsons
shakes, bi-polar, tri-polar, quasi-polar...
diabetes drugs--a new one an hour,
Pepto Bismal, diarrhea, and all manner
of discharges...
or just plain hanging on
by a fucking thread...all tied up
& made pretty by those beautiful & happy victims
by a beautiful red bow
around a Toyota for Christmas
with a Golden Retriever loving you up.
My balls went into a vacuum;
my butter curdled;
my steak stunk;
salad wilted;
Pelligrino flat & foul tasting.

I got off my ass & out.

The old Italian, Stromboli,
had the Yankee game on;
Judge coming to the plate.
Hey, Nick, gimme two slices...
and wait--put some anchovies on em;
make it to stay.
It was only the top
of the fourth
with the Yankees down a run.
All in all
not bad, not bad
at all.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

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

OBSESSIONS

are our jailor's key:
they lock you up,
they lock you down,
and they let you out
just long enough
to crave the relief
they offer: a dance
on the head of a pin
called death.
They simplify
complications.
They ease
bordom.
They give rise
to fantasies
only fantasy
can provide.

Work, gambling,
eating, sex,
drinking, drugging,
masturbating
ourselves
endlessly
& forever
is surely
preferable
to the dull
monotonous
routine
that dog's
our days.
To be caught
is to be
liberated.
Where are they?
Who are they with?
When will I be with them?
How will I be with them?
When will they call?
Should I answer?
Will I answer?
Should I call?
How will they come back?
Will they come back?
When will they come back?
Are they fucking?
How are they fucking?
What position are they in?
How big is the cock?
the breast? the wallet?
Do they think of me?
When do they think of me?
How much to bet?
The next meal?
Draw to a straight?
Twenty minutes to three, twenty five minutes to a drink, the taste, the smell, the first sip, the going down, the settling of nerves, the feeling right, normal, OK, seventeen minutes to three...or five, or midnight, or three a.m?

Writers write and painters paint
to make vibrant the dullness of time.
The great Karl Wallanda said:
"Walking the wire is living,
the rest is waiting."

And now,
my waiting,
begins.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

BIG-BONED

and beefy,
my belly,
puffs
with pages,
distending
this monstrosity
over my belt.
I've eaten,
like a good boy,
all my words
and am now trying
to shit them out.
It's a push.
It's making
me just a little
sick; the fucker
weighs three hundred
and fifty-five pounds
as of this date
and is still
hungry.
It seems ravenous
for everything
I know
or have
done:
the pleasures,
the pains,
the betrayals
and triumphs.
It's anger
is its humor;
its aggression
is its patience.
It is a gourmand
of confusion.
It is
the iron chef
of the soul.

One cannot force
the breach;
the place
where it forms
is dark
& locked
from sight.
One must give-in
to its petulance
and not encourage
its reticence.

I love it
already.

(And, yes,
you're in there,
too).

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

THERE'S NOTHING VERY PRETTY

about my poetry,
or about my love.
I've learned both
through mistakes,
false starts,
& feeling
my way
through thickets
laced with
illusions
great
& small.
It's been
a nightmarish
dream
of opposites.
I've believed in
my hard-headed
notions
of what
this all meant,
& its been proved
wrong in its
soft-headed
naiveté.

My writings
are ugly,
unpolished &,
more often
than not,
gross.
They're messy
& not easily
digestible.

But when
they go
down, if
they go
down,
they are good
to eat
a thousand years.

Bon appetite.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

EVEN THE SIMPLE IS COMPLICATED ENOUGH

I take myself out
for a bite to eat
to the same Greek dive
I've been goin to for 35 years
now. Hell,
been livin in my pad for over 40--
but who's counting?
Nick & Paul,
the owners,
have seen me
in many different states
through many decades:
sober, drunk, young, wild,
old, wild, high, low,
indifferent, maniacal, calm,
pensive and apoplectic.
I've sat isolated
and speechless
or boisterous and boorish.
I've littered their booths
with the scents of women
and love and the smell of
defeats; defeats from jobs,
publishers, women, friends,
and body. What I do,
and who I'm with,
no longer raise their eyebrows
or lowers their lids.
I've eaten their eggs & ham,
bacon & sausages & pancakes,
homemade moussaka, bread pudding,
& brisket, drank their coffee
& stirred their little creamers
& watched their children age
& them grow old.
I've seen favorite waiters & waitresses
farmed out to pasture because their legs
cannot get rid of the water & have ballooned
as big as their waist. The only person
who didn't age
is me.
Neurotics don't age
but hold fast
& hold on.

Today,
I had a hamburger, fries, salad.
It was the same bottle of oil,
the same vinegar, the same tomato
& the same slice of onion; the burger
was thinner, the bun bigger; the fries
still frozen & pretty much
as tasteless as ever,
but the price has tripled.
And why not?:
the farms are dry,
crops roasted,
cows suicidal,
the beef chemical.
The half-buck & buck tip
is now two or three.
Nick & Paul tell me
they'll soon retire;
they're tired of working
for the landlord.
But not me. I can't
retire--I'm a poet.
And poets are not supposed to "work,"
they only have to "live"--
which is the harder,
and more complicated,
of the two
I think I know,
but will never ever
say.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014