RUNNING AWAY FROM HOME

Every night
I would run away from home
as I tried to fall asleep.
I would hear
from the next bedroom
the mellifluous tones
of mom cooing to my dad
just what a sonofabitch bastard
I was
that day:
lying selfish sneaky; in short,
a piece of shit.
I think I was about eight
or nine...maybe ten.
She was encouraging him to
"give him a beating, Mick."
Whether I did something
or not didn't matter;
I was always doing something.
A feeling of guilt
would puddle around me,
& the blankets & bed
I slept under & on,
would drip, in the morning,
with neurosis
of many kinds
pooling around my feet.

Every night
the decision was easy:
Roy & Dale's ranch
was where I was headed;
they had a big spread,
a big heart,
& a big family; they kept
adopting kids: chinese kids,
spanish kids, white kids
& black kids, old kids,
& young kids; there musta been
a hundred of em
all livin & lovin each other
on that spread.
I'd just show-up
with all my stuff
in my hand
neatly in a small kerchief
& ask if they would let me stay.
I knew they'd never say, "no."
Not to a kid.

Everyday
I'd play.
I'd ride that awesome Palimino, Trigger,
play with Bullet & even help his cook, cook.
And then Pat would teach me Nellybelle, the Jeep,
& we'd go up & down hills & valleys and,
when she had a mind to, she'd run away from me, too.

In the morning
I looked at her
over my burnt & tasteless eggs.
"Eat it, or I'll tell your father," she sneered.
"Tell him, who gives a shit," I wanted to say.
But I knew, somewhere, far off,
they were mending fences,
bucking broncos, and laughing,
as I shoveled in
another bite.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2020

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

TAKE ME HOME

A first scent
of a rose petal's blush
on warm flesh
when ill;
the blood splatter
from love positioned
around the dinner table;
french toast nursed
by arthritic fingers
puffed with butter & cinammon;
fears running up & down
the broken vertebrea
of a family's spine;
nerves scattering
like mice
caught in a cat's eye;
a belly laugh
at our own imbecilities;
a warmth girding
all our failures;
and safety,
yes safety,
safety as each of us
walked a netless
wire.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

HIGH SCHOOL SHIT

I don't remember the class,
nor the subject,
nor the teacher,
but I do remember the boredom.
I remember reading something...
a short story,
a poem,
a novel,
something
but I do remember the line:
"we are what we're least afraid to be."
It stopped me.
It resonated.
Echoed.
I read it a few times
and obviously
committed it to memory.
I was not a good student.
Easily bored,
distracted, ashamed
of my awkwardness
and inability to fit
anywhere.
I had a brashness
a bravado
to try and balance
the scales,
but I knew
deep down
just what a jerk-off
I was.
I knew I could not make it
in the straight world,
normality was not "my thing"
and so cultivated any
and everything that took me
outside it: gambling,
unprotected sex, brown paper bag
drinking, reefer, and finally
dope. I was a "traditionalist."
Drinking without ice, without
chasers; women with no particular
discernment; dope that needed
to be shot.
Somehow
I managed to survive:
good women, mostly.
And somehow
I grew-up
somewhat
and realized
just how true
that high school line
was and is.
There are those
hiding under a guise
of isolation,
more afraid to be loved
and less afraid to be rancid;
those who wonder
what those outside lines
mean and what it is
to cross them;
I am more afraid to live
and less afraid to write
about living; and those
who live with quiet urgency
and keep their desires
loud inside them.

I still have needs
that need to be met;
I need to be told
that surgeons
do not need scalpels
to make you well
and whole
again.
I am not abstract;
I am a straight line
that grew-up
crookedly; I've made
with a will,
not my own,
something
better, something
that loves me.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014

A SMALL PRICE TO PAY

All of us are born mad, some of us remain so.
--Beckett

Many people
throughout my life,
including my parents,
teachers, casual friends,
bosses, lovers and other instruments
of control, have said to me,
in these words,
or similar ones:
"Grow the fuck up."
"When are you going to stop
being such a goddamn child
& grow-up, do something
with your life, make something
of yourself; when are you going
to matter?"
I never knew
how to answer them.

The process
of socialization
is supposed
to make that happen;
to exchange,
in effect,
the metonymic
for the metaphoric.
It never happened
with me.
"Things"
which ideas
spring from,
are still, for me,
contiguous. "Shit"
comes out of "sirloin,"
"reds" live next to "goblins,"
"love" can very well be
a "crucifixion."

No, no,
you must work,
you must save,
you must listen,
you must be disciplined,
you must be nice
to others & pray
& marry & have children
& work & work & work
& put your shoulder
to the wheel

which I have,
but in a odd
way. Awry, askance,
coming at myself
from a backward
angle, words
have been my most constant
friend and lover
and the few friends
I still have
are still at it,
too--whatever "it" is
and whatever that means.

It's easy enough
to stamp your feet
when you're two,
and not move,
and shake your head, "no,"
"fuck-off," "get lost,"
"sorry, ain't interested."
Not that much harder
when you're twenty,
even thirty.
But past that
it gets
just a bit
harder;
the mortality rate
exponentially higher.
Few do it well
because few do it
at all.

The "house"
is society.
Like Vegas
they never
lose. They
have patience.
Eventually
if you stay
at the tables
long enough
they're going
to own you.
Except now.
Except
for me.
At nearly
67, chipped away
at, clipped, tired
as a motherfucker
I'm still swinging it.

Now,
I'm playing with
the house's
money.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014

WE ARE DAMAGED

The Betty Poems

by two traumas:
birth and who
gave birth
to us.
Can't do much
about either.
If we're lucky
our caregivers
were hip
to that and allowed
our wounds
to scar
and fade
quickly. Most
of us
were not
lucky
and found ourselves
slugging it out
with ourselves
and life's consequences.
We played dirty
because life
played dirty.
Some
took a beating
quietly,
while others
bit back.
Some
sought mercy
others sought symbols;
some suicided
and some killed
others instead;
some killed a different kind of pain
in error
or desperation.

Pass the salt
please.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014

SMOKING

I used to watch my old man smoke
those Chesterfield shorts.
How he'd shake one
out of the pack,
flip it nimbly in his fingers,
and light it from a match
he cupped in his fist
whether he was against the wind
or not.
He'd hold the smoke deftly,
like a good pool shooter would hold his cue,
inhale deeply,
and while letting go
that first drag,
smoke coming out of his mouth and nose,
take another
down into his lungs
which seemed to satisfy him
for a few seconds.
Sometimes I'd be with him
and a few of his Mafia cronies
and they, too, would smoke unfiltered's:
Camels, Pall Malls, Chesterfields,
and Lucky's. I'd see them dry lip
the ends and then flick their tongues
to get at the specks of tobacco
that snuck aboard or sometimes
pinch their lips to remove them.
It was as cool and natural to them
as it was to Bogey
or Frank
who they idolized.
It went with the doing;
it went with the getting done.

I musta been eleven or twelve
when I stole a few Chesterfields
and a bottle of gin
from the liquor cabinet
and took them
and a pack of matches
to the beach.
Stealing was a delicious act,
but crossing into their world was tastier.
I got to the beach in Coney Island,
sat on the wet sand
my form lit from an old street lamp
forming a question mark
on the boardwalk.
I put the Chesterfield between my lips,
tasted a sweet bitterness that stung
the tip of my tongue
and tried to cup the match,
burned my fingers,
tried again,
and again,
and again,
finally lighting it from the side.
I took a drag
and coughed;
took a sip of warm gin
and gagged.
I smoked three cigarettes quick,
and sipped what tasted like hair tonic
just as quickly.
Light headed and a bit looped,
I made it home,
snuck around the back
eased the door open
and up to my room
undetected
and found my old man
sitting on my bed
waiting for me.
Come here you little bastard,
and close the door.

In a short amount of time,
Chesterfields tasted too stale,
Camels too thick,
Pall Malls were too long,
but Lucky's fit fine.
Later,
circumstance would dictate
what was smoked and what was drunk,
or ingested,
but who knew that
then?

Today,
there is a filter
on my cigarette,
and coffee in my glass.
Sometimes that reality
gets me sick
if I think about it
too much.
Soon,
I fear,
the cigarettes,
and my lungs,
will have to go,
too.
"Love" does not now,
never did,
and never will,
conquer all.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2012