FIRSTS:

Asking Maxine out
for a hot fudge ice-cream sundae
when I was six and summoning up
the courage to take her hand
on our secret path back home;
swimming without my father's arms
underneath me & feeling the waters pull;
surfing on asphalt on a tar spun Brooklyn street,
the training wheels off
with only my own power & balance to guide me;
a hardball sliding into my Rawlings oiled glove
and hitting a liquid smart drive on the fat of the bat;
having courage in the darkness
& the high spun arc of magisterial wide screen technicolor
coming on at once like LSD kid style; melted popcorn
oozing between my fingers licking the tips;
the first time my dick moved straight up
all by itself;
the first time I mastered making a bridge
so the pool cue slid easily between my fingers;
the first time the ball touched nothing
but twine and the swoosh it made;
the first touch of silk;
or the smell of my dog wet
from the spring rains;
the first time I saw Corinne
and moved toward her without
knowing why; the first smell
from a mimeograph machine or
gasoline pump, paper solvent
or horse manure or man sweat
after a summer's football game
on the beach; the first pull
on a stick of reefer or opium pipe
and the snake that slithered up
my spine and around my shoulders
and up into my brain;
the first time I realized Coltrane
or Monk or Miles or Billie or Nina;
the first time I knew I really existed
and found the keys into Joyce's pocket;
sighting Diane behind a glove counter & knew
how love can come from behind and mug you.
It has been a long slow kiss
to the fates and it has been
sublime.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

THE NIGHTMARE RIDES THE RAILS

The sunset is cold.
Evenings are cruel
reminders of mercies
once tendered by stick-up men
now behind the cage
mortgaged by age & small print.

I carry my limbs
like remembrances,
thick logs held as offerings
to burn in my night's furnace.
This is not penance.
This is an old Wurlitzer
in a 42nd Street dive.
This is speed rack Scotch.

She spread herself.
And I did the same.

I'm attracted
to the way poppies ooze.
How, when they're sliced
the jism slides
down their face.
It was a wise culture
who saw their mouths
around the bulbs easing
the cuts of a failing
light.

How women know
how to touch
the way they do
sits at the crossroads
of silence
& mercy.
Adam's curse,
revisited
nightly, plays
across her lips.
Her tongue licks
a wound deeper
than the world.

I would wake,
if I could,
to a life
like mine.
I would shake
my oily fur,
matted & soiled
from a mongrel's
impetuousness,
& find
my ear
in your
mouth
& your whispers
on my breath.

Let me love you,
it said,
and I awoke
looking
for the voice
& a gun.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

BIG-BONED

and beefy,
my belly,
puffs
with pages,
distending
this monstrosity
over my belt.
I've eaten,
like a good boy,
all my words
and am now trying
to shit them out.
It's a push.
It's making
me just a little
sick; the fucker
weighs three hundred
and fifty-five pounds
as of this date
and is still
hungry.
It seems ravenous
for everything
I know
or have
done:
the pleasures,
the pains,
the betrayals
and triumphs.
It's anger
is its humor;
its aggression
is its patience.
It is a gourmand
of confusion.
It is
the iron chef
of the soul.

One cannot force
the breach;
the place
where it forms
is dark
& locked
from sight.
One must give-in
to its petulance
and not encourage
its reticence.

I love it
already.

(And, yes,
you're in there,
too).

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

"TAKE A BREAK"

for j. and in spite of her...

she said to me.
"Gimme a minute...
I need to get this shit
down," I answered.
"You said that
an hour ago...
it's my Sunday, too."
"A minute,
just a minute,"
I promised.
"Now, Savage,
I need some
attention
now."
"It's still early,
night's young."
"But not you;
your shelf life
is almost expired
and I've got an itch
that needs scratchin."
"Come over here," I parried.
"Seriously,
take a break; this cat
needs to purr."
Black women
are different
than white:
they get up
in your face
and no "no's"
placate
or appease.
"C'mon Daddy do
what you do."
"Fuckit,"
I said
without
letting her
hear it.
Beside
she had
a better way
with life
than I did.
And I'm simply
not that much
of an artist
or fascist.
I shut-off
the Mac
and did
what any man
would do:
obeyed.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014