TRUMP THIS!!!

I gotta Big Cock!
That's right! Big!
Very Big!
I mean Big!
Cock.
Big.
My father had a big one.
Grandfather, too.
Come from a long line
of Big Cocks!
Yes, I do! Big.
My great great grandfather
had a schlong so big
that after he took a piss
he didn't shake it out,
he had to kick the fuckin thing.
That's right.
Big!
One tough man.
And a smart man.
Went to The Yukon
in the Gold Rush days.
He had a huge huge huge
Penis. Yes he did.
Opened a whorehouse
& a restaurant;
he fucked em
& fed em. That's right.
Talk about pole numbers!
What a pole he had!

The train is leaving
the station; the sad-eyed
ladies are rowing home;
the Big Top
is shuttered
as the laughing bones
lie bleaching
in the sun.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

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

THE GIRLS OF SENEGAL

think I'm funny
when I flirt with them.
I'd have to be dead
not to--
that's how beautiful
they are;
the most precious fruit
in a supermarket
of extravagance.

They are lit
from the inside;
their blue/black skin
glows with the kind of light
many people, who are smart,
will read by.

You are not old mister,
no,no,no, Mamouda and Neeva sing,
we do not see age,
different in my country.
I come from a Kleenex culture,
I tell them, "Use once,
then throw away."
They laugh
and know
it's true.

I shop there
for many reasons:
it's closer
to my leaden
& lurching step;
the food is better;
the butcher slips
me a steak
& charges me
for chicken;
but it's the girls
who mean the most;
it's the girls
who tell me
not to worry;
it's the girls
who bring me food
when I'm sick
or miserable;
or out of sorts;
it's the girls
who bring me gifts
from their Senegalese village:
a painting, a bracelet,
a picture of their family.

And so I spend
what little money I have
to be loved
even now
at my age. I'm a poet
you see,
stupid, irrational
in regard
to things
lesser beings
think of as rational:
money,
health,
possessions.
If I did that,
I believe,
I'd waste
energy,
precious
energy.
Better to contemplate
love
and God,
and cherish
victories
no matter
how slight.
Somebody
has to
suffer
&
dance.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

WHAT A SHAME

you love me
only from a distance.
Popping up
every so often
to feed
your being
by seeing
if I've fed
mine:
Either I love you
or no one; you exist
or forgotten; the poetry
itself matters
little.
But no matter.
I love
your love,
however warped
& twisted
it springs
from a tortuous sense
of self.
I do
however
abhor
the distance.
"Call me Ishmael,"
if you like.
My soul,
like his,
is damp
& drizzly
in my months
of constant November.
My exploration
of good
& evil
stops
with you.

You've digested
enough love
in your life.
The thought
of another
is nauseating.
Hell, indeed,
for you,
is other people.

I would give you
a wafer
& wine
instead, but that,
too, reeks
of flesh
& of that
you've eaten
your fill.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

THAT WAS THEN, THIS IS...

In 1959
a bottle
of insulin
was two dollars and thirty-nine cents,
and now it's three,
three hundred, that is. Same bottle,
probably the same pig pancreas.
Back then the cashiers in pharmacy's,
grocery stores, deli's, movie theaters,
streetcars, gas stations,
knew how to make change
without being told
by a computer program.
You could find a pad, mid-sixties,
in NYC for less than a hundred a month
instead of four thousand: same water,
same heat, same crummy landlord; I could
go to Gerdes and listen to Van Ronk,
Oaks, Dylan, Farina & Baez or Trane or Max
or Sonny or Cecil or Miles for less than five
& still have enough for a shot and a beer
or a nickel bag of good reefer.
Gas was 39 cents a gallon, The Fillmore a few bucks,
and a vegetable cream cheese and butter bagel
with a cup of coffee was a dollar
at Ratner's when the night (& the reefer) demanded food
to go on.

It seemed you had to work
for your pleasures back then:
you couldn't give your money
to some dope dealer and hoped he'd come back,
or call a number and have it delivered--you
had to get it yourself
if you didn't want to get beat; you had to read
a whole book or article or the liner notes
of albums and not give a shit whether a million other assholes
liked it or not before
you took a chance.
Screens were
for movie theaters;
there were only certain things
you held in your hand:
someone else's hand,
or heart/your heart,
or your dick.

I don't know
if it's better
or worse now; each
his own, as they say.
I do know there is less
of me
to complain
& to kill.
The rest of you
I leave
to weave
memories
of your own--
good of me
I know.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

THE CHINESE

have been reading
my poetry
of late.
Lots of them.

And I've been eating
their food,
it seems,
all my life;
first Jewish Chinese:
eggrolls, spare ribs,
Chow Mein,
Chop Suey,
mustard, soy,
and duck sauce.
Only later
did I discover
Chinese food
when I lived
with a Chinese woman.
Thank God.

We've been getting fat
on each other's by-products,
(I hope),
then
& now.
It's the definition
of free-
trade.

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