C'est Le Guerre

A million lips & words
& fingers & smells
& false starts;
a hundred thousand zippers
pulled
up & down
a half million times
with hairs caught
in steel teeth &
two million pimples
popped a half billion
fumbling & rumblings
& phones falling out
of their cradles
by silence & midnight
forays into forests
of motives & maybe
a urinary infection
or two beside a pregnancy
& cold linoleum abortions
decided in extremis...

& now
little
laughs,
but
safety.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

IT SPRINGS

from the bellybuttons
of dreams & the mouths
of minnows; it settles
between double features
in old Times Square porn theaters;
it's in the smile
of ticket takers
& the flashlights
of old matronly ushers;
it's in drums
of sludge & boxes
of organic apples.
We go to battle with it,
fear thick and greedy
sleeps inside our creases,
and,
victorious or not,
leave
in a worsen state.
It's in the oil
that covers our fingers
opening a can of tuna fish;
it's in the tears of onions
and the sad play of old radios;
it's in black&white&
in color; it's roadkill
and hospital mistakes.
How we think
we get away
is indeed
the mystery
& the myth.

Agonies
great
and small;
sorrow
near
and wide
while pleasure
hides
in pockets
& thieves its way
to those
who expect
nothing.

Be easy.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014