TAKE WHAT YOU WANT, GOD IS DEAD AND HIS MOM WENT SHOPPING

The world will soon explode
from grief.
Young black & white girls
expose fecal tunnels of love
on CraigsList for cheap
tradeoffs of minimum wage
allowing the breath
of truck drivers
& university professors
to reach into their innards
& steal what never was:
youth & possibilities.
Russia is mad
with memories
& China with rice futures;
India keeps trying to grow
deserts of food
& the Congo beats drums
of failures & fortunes.
A crippled falcon
cannot be seen or heard
as the circles grow wider
above Christmas sales
& Hallmark bromides.

Our guts get pulled out
struggling with biology
as our little experiment
is unraveling.
Our only meal
is eating pussy
or sucking cock--
damn the nutrients.
Money & pleasure
should be the faces
on bills of exchange:
Caligula, Nero,
Mick Jagger.

Mom will be back
soon...unless
she gets trampled
in the rush
to be first
when the store
opens. She wants
an X-Box.
She's determined
not to lose
another son
that has yet
to be
conceived.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

WE AIN'T SO TOUGH

We like to think
we can fade anything.
Nothing's
too difficult
for us
humans
to conceive of
or do.
Perhaps?...

I prefer
the wolf
trapped
in steel
& chews
his foot off
without asking
for sympathy
or Zoloft;
or a three-legged
dog jogging; or
a wordless sparrow
in the Hawk's eye
with clipped wing
& a bread crumb
happy in the sun.
I've not seen
a mean mother elephant
nuzzling a dumb calf
or a lionness humiliate
her cub.
No flower I know
has hid
from the sun;
or a beetle
refuse dung.

We have too much
& so too little.
The eye
on the pyramid's dollar
blind and baffled
by good fortune.
It seems we've got
Nature's sequence
wrong. All
wrong.
Our memorial
to our wars
is above ground
not under it.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

THANKS FOR GIVING

For j.

me
married women
whose husbands
are dead
or might as well be.
Thanks for giving
them
ancient bohemian hearts
and well-springs
of curiosity.
Thanks for giving
us
chemical erections
to boost passion
and education.
Thanks for giving
Chinatown
instead of turkey.
Thanks for giving
trusting Indians.
And thanks for giving
me
a country
that tolerated
me
and made my life
a jumbled mess
of transgressions
and forgiveness.

Tomorrow
is there
to mold
and to
fabricate.
But tonight,
tonight is for
deep reflection
and above all else
laughter.

The wing
is yours.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014