BECAUSE THERE IS SO MUCH BEAUTY

that only torture brings out,
I've made sure
to have stockpiled
enough pain annuities
to last a lifetime.
My memory bank
welcomes the lash
& the leash
of new subscribers,
but should I see
a masochistic downturn
I simply tune in
to my favorite stations
and taste the blood
of a finely aged betrayal.

Johnny Keats
waxing poetic
on a Grecian Urn
shook the Brooklyn
off its perch
and into the steely crabgrass
where the hanging-judge
and the lotus-eater
hold court.

To all those
who've hurt or crippled me,
I cannot thank you enough.
To all those
who've fooled or betrayed me,
my hat is off to you;
you have lived far past
your expiration date,
but torture me still.
You've birthed this poem
and those which came before
and those which come after.
It's a signless road,
but well-traveled.
I can find it in the dark.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

AFTER THE IDEA HITS,

but before laying it down--
before putting pen to paper,
before putting fingers to keyboard,
before putting mouth to mic,
I must stop
to procrastinate.
I could tug
on my balls,
dig in
a little;
the decision hanging
in the balance--
type it?
scribble it?
breathe
into this smartphone?
or maybe take a shit?
brew a cup of tea?
or coffee?
start a fight
with dead people?
or look for butterflies
in my fist?
maybe stringing up
a rope?...

You see
a poem
has an urgency
I want to control
because it feels so good
and comes
so infrequently
I want to punish it
for being so stingy
while making love to it
for being so goddamned sexy.

The risk, of course,
is having them die
before they fully show,
but who said
being a hedonist
was ever easy.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

WHAT WOULD BE THE CRIME

if you loved me?
What would you lose
if you lost yourself?
What would you give up
if you gave up
defending against
your ghosts?

I, too,
am a loner
who craves
a lover
when I want; I, too,
am a howling maw
of misery
& trouble; I, too,
am skilled
at the art
& pleasures
of self-flagellation.

One day
we'll meet
on a border
of heaven & hell
& skip
between the two.
We'll have plenty
to laugh about--
our stinginess
with ourselves
being just one
of our follies.
Maybe the next time
we die we will
have really listened
to Hank
and choose to allow
what we love
to kill us.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

HEMINGWAY'S SON

somewhat masochistic...

definitely narcissistic...

needs agent.

What else
to say?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

ON WRITING: IN THE STRETCH

You've lived
with something
for almost
eight years.
You've loved it,
fought with it,
caressed it,
kissed it,
abandoned it...and
came back to it.
You can't leave it
because
it never left you.

You've aborted
six months of work,
a hundred and fifty pages,
once and nearly a hundred
again; you've played,
at first
with first
person,
then third,then
back to first.
You've made notes
on little scraps
of paper &
on the palm
of your hand;
you've played
in the stream
& of the stream,
you thought
a door opened
and saw it get shut
in your face.
It wanted nothing
to do with you.
It only made you
love it more.

No doubt
my love
of pain
held me
there.
I found that true
for other lovers
as well.
No doubt
there is something
to be said
for isolation
& all the pain
& pleasure
that brings.
There are those
who think
that we writers
are something
special--and we writers
would have to
agree. The truth is
that we're sonsofbitches,
cocksuckers, leeches,
and lovers of pleasures
that have nothing to do
with pleasures
of a more pedestrian
nature. We want
our cake
our fork
our slice
and our fix
and we don't
want to pay
for it in coin,
but in blood.

Now, when I can see
the end of this
I am more miserable.
It means, that soon,
I have to go
amongst you
again. Gimme
a smoke.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015