YOU'RE AN ITCH

The Betty Poems

I can't scratch;
a constant ache
I can't rub;
a certified check
I can't cash.
You're an ATM
full of promise
and I've forgotten
my password;
you're a money machine
that's down
or not down
but in an undisclosed
location.
You hold the keys
to the handcuffs
around my soul
but have eaten them.

It's maddening.

But I'm a funny addict:
I've shot sex
for such a long time
I can only get off
when love is mainlined
as well. And it better be
pretty much pure.
And so,
I'd rather deny myself
some half-ass high
than be strung-out
on half-ass hope--never more stupid
than when it's a finger-tip away.

I give you fair warning:
if you write
and I don't answer;
if you call
and I don't pick-up
it is not because
I don't want to;
it is not that I'm trying
to test or be hurtful--
(I can be vicious, I know)
--to you; it just means
I'm busy
hiding;
I'm licking my wounds
like any animal would;
I'm filling holes;
it means I'm playing
with another madness,
I'm reading,
I'm crying, I'm laughing
as the sirens wail;
I'm eating green
bologna, liverwurst, or a bloody
steak,
or peeling an orange; I'm trying
to make it,
just make it
for a little longer.
It means that the evidence
I vigilantly gathered
overwhelms me; it means
I'm shaking my head
in disbelief;
I'm hanging on by a spider's net,
by my own flimsy reason;
it means I'm slitting
the navel
of my dream;
it doesn't mean I love you
or not; or hate you,
or not,
but accept you
I can't
yet.
All I can do
is talk about it
to strangers
or trees,
write about it and sing
songs about it
until it's dispelled,
displaced, dissipated,
broken-down and thinned
so that it flows
between my bodies plaque
gummed-up with history.

It matters little
to me the cost--
I'd rather have had it
than not
and paid
what it's worth.
And if it's lost
it's only because
it was most precious;
it's the only thing
we usually
lose...
and that's good,
too.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013

ONE FOR MY OL' MAN, BIG MICK

"Norm,"
he said to me once
when I was quite young,
"those 'short hairs'
on a woman's pussy
are stronger
than the cables
that hold up bridges."
I laughed.
I'd been fucking
by then
anytime I could
(of course)
but was still sixteen
or so.
He said this to me
in the presence
of a wise guy
friend of his
in some Canarsie lounge
in Brooklyn
in the sixties.
The wise guy
shook his head
in agreement,
drew on his Camel,
and snickered as well.
They knew
something
I didn't.

Until now.

I never knew
or felt
that kind of love
from my side
of the fence;
never knew
the pull,
the draw,
the obsession,
or strength.
Never knew
how powerful
a thing
one woman's pussy
could be.

Until now.

It's a mighty thing.
A miserable cunt
of a thing.
A Bermuda Triangle
of pain.

Sure,
I thought I was in love
many times before;
and sure,
it didn't work;
and sure,
there was a hangover
for however long there was--
but they passed
--sometimes like piss
and sometimes like a kidney stone,
but they passed.

This one,
has sealed all the doors,
and fires back.


It's good to know
I'm just
one of the guys.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013