EVERY DAY, A HOT, STEAMY, CONEY ISLAND SUMMER

A carousel of women
encircle my brain;
some demur & lovely
in their tease
& some fierce & subversive,
all locked for a moment
in a terrible beauty
& embrace
of my choosing
what to remember
and why
to remember it.
Eyes wide
with panic--
or is it fear
--proudly prancing
their manes dancing to deities
of visions sung loudly
proclaiming my birth
and my lies.

Yes,
my memories
oiled up
& waiting
to be caught
in this arcade,
this hothouse
of simulacrums

while my mother hides
inside the ride,
clocking my action,
judging,
finger pointing,
wagging her stiletto like tongue,
cursing my infidelities now,
then, and those to come
to term
leaving her free
to pull the levers
and adjust.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN DEVOURED

fearing your life
could end here/now
& not caring,
so caught are you
in the moment,
in the white hot cauldron
of madness,
that for once--
& maybe forever--
you & your cannibal lover
are blessedly
speechless?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

TRANSVESTITES & BUTCHERS

For Hannah Sullivan

I am a lover
of words; I seek
fantasies through
metaphors, beauty
through suggestion.
It is a time
when gravediggers
wait for the earth
to dismiss its frost;
a time when ladies wait
in ladies garments
for New Jersey truckers
to grab a handful of cock
before their I95 mirror
of masculinity.
They carry their hairy husk
of doubt
and dribble from a slack mouth
of evening's fast lanes.

I'm in Florent
sitting next to a high yellow princess.
We listen to the nightime swish
of meatpacking blood
slicking cobblestones maroonish,
thick with animal stink.
I've been to The Vanguard
and heard Cecil solo.
She listened to a different music.
We're both hungry.
We will both go home
but not together.

A limp wind kisses
against boredom.
A bluetit crab
curbed by rumors
of the sea
burrows deeply
into my lover's dreams.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

WHO KNOWS?

where they are?
or who they're with?
but I have
my suspicions:
one,
I'm pretty sure,
is fucking
a Cuban donkey
on some Havana side street;
another lies
under the sheets
in a psych unit
on a mountain side
in St. Moritz
waiting for a soulful skier
to fly onto her ward
& pirouette around her privates;
and still another,
lost in a memory dream
crosses a wet street
lifting her nun's robe
across her father's sternum.

Imagination dictates reality.

Most likely,
all the old ones,
and ones yet to come,
are battling
old battles.
Reminding themselves
they've misunderstood
themselves & their muses;
that ambivalence balanced
on the tip of her tit
gives her
enormous pleasure
and her sacrifices,
while tragic,
are trifles
as a white girl
sings Mississippi
juke joint blues.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

THE BEST LOVERS

are a shade short
of brilliant,
deeply disturbed.
somewhat &
sometimes
unhinged,
swinging
like a handkerchief
in the wind.
They have creases
& scars despite
their age
are nutty & flakey
and twist your words
on themselves
& imprison you
gladly
& madly
beyond your meager
understanding.
They make
unscheduled stops
in your heart.
They move
on white lines
in black streets
the asphalt hot
& sticky from
their all day heat
inside your head.
What magic
they make.
Don't die
before finding one.
Go out now
make yourself
miserable.
You'll thank me
later.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

BRAZILIAN WAX

"The wrinkles and creases on our faces are the registration of the great passions, vices, insights that called on us; but we, the masters, were not at home."
--Walter Benjamin
--"The Illuminations"


Your pain
has given me
much pleasure.
I've tasted
a lush samba
inside your V.

Your tongue,
flicked me,
like cool feathers
across sun baked
& sex starved
memories.

Hasn't everyone
enjoyed this
with their lover--
I think
not.
They're merely
pedestrians
who have to look
both ways
before crossing.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

THE BOARDWALK

in AC
was damp,
chilly,
underneath
a slate-gray sky
and bluish black waves
with a cockscomb of white foam
leaving the sand with a froth.
We sat,
as we had
forty years ago
when everything
was in front
of us.
The failures & madness
and a suicide world
filled with regrets
sat behind us
dressed-up
& greedy still.
It felt good
to shiver
with all those lives
hanging
in the
balance.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014