WHERE DO YOU GO WHEN YOU GO WHEN YOU KNOW YOU HAVE NO PLACE TO GO

Those times when you know
you have to go but
do not know exactly
why you have to go
but go you have to
and go you will.


Those times when I become
a turtle drawing my legs
and neck into my space,
into a heroin enclave,
an armored shell & soft belly,
permitting the least amount of damage done
to an already compromised immune system.

Where do you go to breathe.
Where can you undress
down to the confines of your heart
and not be disgusted by its beat.
When will all those monstrous mirrors
tell the truth.
Where do you go when you go
to those unnamed & untamed regions
you know so well;
how naturally do you play
in Keat's sandbox
of negativity?

As for me
I go where safety waits,
though truth is fear's
first casualty.
Still, I would think,
(maybe hope),
it's a stone's throw
from yours;
close enough
for us to share
a shovel.
We cannot, alone,
dig a tunnel out,
but we sure as hell
can get closer
to one another
just by breathing.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2020

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

WORKING OUT THE MATH

A hundred,
she said.
I had
a fifty.

Give an old man a break,
I said.
You don't look that old,
she replied.
Depends on the part,
I said.

How old?
Six nine.
That is old,
she said.
Wait,
it's comin for you, too.
I ain't makin thirty.
You'll make it...
or maybe get lucky.

You sound like my father--
75, but that's it.

C'mon, I said,
I need to get away; escape
for ten or fifteen minutes.


OK fifty for fifteen;
if nothin's happenin
you use your hand.

I'll say a prayer.

Say two.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

I'VE ALWAYS SAT

near doors or
exit signs;
an easy escape
from myself
and other things
human.
A quick glance
is all I need
to survey
and size-up
the scene
and its inherent
hostility:
either too much
brains or brawn.
I love my neighbor,
of course,
with as much ardor
and abandon
as I love myself:
darkly,
skeptically,
imperfectly,
foolishly,
and capable
of anything.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2010-2013

MORSE CODE

My father,
an Army vet,
taught me
the Morse Code
for "help."
And I needed some
to get away
from him
mostly.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village 2010-2013