ONE OF THE ONES

who I made room for,
rearranged the furniture,
put on a new coat of paint.
I had to,
so much was I drawn
to her scent,
and her eyes,
brown & flecked with greens,
so much was I drawn
into her cunt
& the ways
of enchantment.
She rouged her nipples
& perfumed her body.
In the dead
of winter fucked me
in a suicide ward
propped against
my bathroom door.
We had drinks with Mailer,
in Provincetown on a frigid February night
as he tried to make her
& she demured but refused me entry
later in our wooden motel
near the sand dunes.
Angrily, I fucked her
in the ass, her submission
a false delicacy
as we tumbled
into arguments
about poetry
and maturity
and reality
and other
insolvables.
I would wait
on the streets
where I knew she walked
and ran into her
by accident
and we'd pick it up
again.
She found me
at St. Mark's Church
waiting on a Bukowski reading
and coaxed me
into the balcony
& took me in her mouth
while he read below.
We were in & out
of each other's blood
for decades.
And still are.
Both in our seventies
and not yet ready
to call it a day.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

I STUCK

to her neurosis
like a velcro strip--
no matter
how many times
I tried
to extricate
my foot
from my mouth,
or her ass,
it held fast.
I pulled
every muscle
in my goddamn body
and have been
in traction
for the past
three years.

So much
for therapy!

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

LIBIDOBESETZUNG WHILE ON A CAROUSEL OF SHIT

Your pussy rides
the middle horse,
the horse
that rears up,
while death sits still
at your side
behind you
& in front.
I cannot
get past them
& think:
I really
don't want to.
For where would I be
if I weren't digging
a grave with you
or without you,
inside you
or pushing
against the steel
of your heart?
I know now
what happens
after a man finds
a cunt that fits--
he waits
like a child
for the brass ring
to come 'round again
while the grave beckons
my name to be written--
like breath
on a mirror.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

WE USE WHAT WE GOT (every little bitty thing) THAT GOD GAVE US

like guns
& pocket mirrors;
like a hairy fist,
or a fast thumb;
like tits
on a '55 Cadillac's bumper
put in a push-up bra,
or a chiseled jaw
bracing a British accent;
we use our parent's wealth,
or food stamped passivity.
We use our reputation,
the written word,
stuttering,
or long legs leading to mysterious fortunes.
We play humor, twist pathos, dance with angels
or devils or landlords or tax collectors--
all that dross,
--secrets & solitudes
and the desperation
of others;
vanity/poverty
& holidays of blue suicides,
big dicks & tight cunts
snapping shut or dribbling
out the clock;
sophisticated offhandedness,
construction sweat,
a beaten fighter's courage,
a hooker's scars,
a priest's purity--
what we got,
is what we use.
I do it.
You do it.
We all do it
in the service
of love,
like the worm,
like the snake,
like the slug.
Everywhere.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

C'est Le Guerre

A million lips & words
& fingers & smells
& false starts;
a hundred thousand zippers
pulled
up & down
a half million times
with hairs caught
in steel teeth &
two million pimples
popped a half billion
fumbling & rumblings
& phones falling out
of their cradles
by silence & midnight
forays into forests
of motives & maybe
a urinary infection
or two beside a pregnancy
& cold linoleum abortions
decided in extremis...

& now
little
laughs,
but
safety.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

MOST EVERYTHING

bugs me
these days:
a vein
resistant
to liquids,
a candy colored
blemish
of fear
in the cheeks
of a baby's smile.
The passage
of years
have set
my teeth
on edge:
The price
of toilet paper
or the toil
of buses
wailing
from the grim
silence of
travelers
risks
gunfire
and chafed
hearts.
My woman
keeps to
herself.
She has prepared
a dinner
she doesn't expect
to eat
with consequence.
Luckily,
I do not
come home.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

I'VE ORDERED A WOMAN

from Amazon:
used,
dog-eared,
creased,
& underlined.
But you know men:
they make a million mistakes
when it comes to reading
women; they treat
the important trivial
& mistake madness
for difficulties.
I'll read it
myself
and let you know.
Meanwhile,
I choose regular shipping;
I want to have
& want her to have
the juice
of expectation.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

NIPPLE WEATHER

encourages
the urges
of infants
in bodies
of men
propelling mouths
towards milky heads
of nails
in this jack-hammer
civilization...

It nearly broke eighty today
with more heat, more baby talk,
more drool
coming
tomorrow.
Evolution
through fabric.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

A BAD LUCK WOMAN

"Many a good man has been put under a bridge by a woman."
--Henry Chinaski

and she's all mine.
She was sick & suicidal
when she found me.
Just the kind I like.
I got her well
& she thanked me
by twisting the knife
into my innards
like she was twirling spaghetti.
She was Faye
& I was Jack
and this was Chinatown.

I couldn't quit her.
I couldn't quit her
before it cost me my job,
my money, my sanity and
nearly my pad--eviction notices
blanketed my door. Her absence
bothered me more than anything real could.
But I fought
the good fight
until her boil
became a pimple
that I sometimes,
even to this day,
absentmindedly rub.
My poems
as my life
doesn't concern her;
she cares
only if I still care
about her; only
in that regard
she's like
the rest of us.
I do not say
this is good
or bad but is...
until yesterday...

I saw that someone
from Canada peeked into my blog.
I had that feeling
that we all have
from time to time: anxious,
troubling and worse still,
curious.
I contacted the three readers
I have up there.
No, they said, not them.

Later in the a.m. I was woken
by a stiff white light
shining into my eyes & the outline
of a monster with a peaked hat.
There's a fire, the voice said,
sorry to wake you like this, but you have to get up and out; too much smoke in here.
I reached for my sweats and sweatshirt and slippers.
I walked out into my hall where six or seven other firemen were doing their thing.
I noticed my lock was busted, its entrails hanging by a thread.
Everything's OK now, one said, sorry about the lock, but we had to get in.
Yeah, I said, it's OK.

I was saving money to buy a comfortable chair and light stand so I could read and watch whatever.
That's all gone: 400 for a lock and house call; New York's a stick-up without a gun.
She probably knew that. I don't know how but
I know she knew
that.
Chop Suey anyone?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

SATURDAY NIGHT ON THE GERIATRIC EXPRESS

"I'm gonna get that limp lookin
sorry-assed piece of meat up...up...up,
yeh here me, up!"
She sounded like The Fifth Dimension.
"Here, take this," she said,
and pushed a few pills at me.
I took em.
It still might be a lot of work,
I cautioned.
"Work. Shit. That's what I live for:
Challenges!"
She was young. Energetic.
I was old. Nearly finished.
We made a funny couple.
The devil was in
both of us.
I might outlive
everybody
she whispered
when it was
over.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

THE YEAR CHANGES, BUT THE UNDERWEAR REMAINS THE SAME

For Puma, with love...


Men still follow
behind women
quietly
as they are led
into supermarkets,
clothing stores,
restaurants,
movie theaters,
looking aimlessly about
as they submit
to the leash,
if not the lash,
of the female
& lean
into their own
confusion.

Jesus, too,
must have noticed
the Jaws of Death
when he followed
that old whore
to her corner
and watched her
throw-out her line
& began to fish
for her daily bread.
He looked about
trying to believe
he was concentrating
on something divine
but knowing it was
rejection
that had him coming
back for more.

Too often
I find myself
reading ingredients
on the backs of cans
while the woman I'm with
moves forward
with our lives.
I've been lucky
having always someone
who knows
how to dance.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 201

MY GIRLFRIEND SAYS

I talk too much;
I give away
too many secrets.
They're just words,
I say; no one
gives much of a shit
one way or another.
Bullshit, she says,
if you get a once in a blue moon hardon
Russia knows, Spain knows,
the fucking Ukraine knows,
and God forbid if I ask you
to eat my pussy, well,
the whole goddamn world has to know
how good you are to me!
But baby, that's what a poet does:
Inspire.
O, shut the fuck up
and get down there.

You never argue
with a woman
gone mad
with desire.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

AN OPEN SECRET

The Chinaman
ironing shirts
knows this;
the matador
poised on his toes ready
to thrust
knows this;
the coke smuggling wetback
knows this;
the milkman
and gravedigger
the lancelot and stevedore
the film idol
and long distance trucker
and FBI tracker
and Appalachian miner
and proctologist
know this: Nothing
is worse
than fighting
with your woman
on Sunday night.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

ONE FOR MOSE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzTYOJQsw-Q

It was a time,
and it was an attitude.
It was New Orleans
raw & dangerous, when evenings
were leaned in to
& junk was still a black thing
& young white boys wanted
to be in the know
thought they knew
how to be black.
Dive clubs & hip kitties.
Poses & jazz
& simple lives
turned impossibly
complicated.
It was a time
when musicians could play
for a week & work ideas
into riffs & people listened
& nodded
their heads
in sympathy
& agreement.
Men knew
the impossibility
of women
& women knew
the impossibility
of men
ever hoping
to come out
of childhood.

We were young
& beat-up;
seeing too much
before we were able
to see our place.
Oysters were a quarter;
a beer and a shot
was seventy-five cents;
and last call
was never.
We'd thought
we'd gotten beyond the haze
into the meaning; we'd thought
that we could escape
our lives
by pissing on them.
The only thing we caught
was our own hair
in the zipper...& boy
did that smart.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

BRUNCH, NYC

I see them
the morning after
the night before,
settling in to
a Sunday ritual
for NYC couples:
brunch, laced
with Mimosas or
Bloody Mary's,
Eggs Benedict
or Florentine.
Only now
their cell phones
sit with them
on table tops,
and every few moments
they glance at them
almost pleading
they provide
distraction.

I wonder
how their evening went;
how was the sex
if they had sex;
if they fought
over family
& friends,
lifestyles,
if they intended
to break it off,
& how they would go about it,
after another meal?

For every handsome man
& drop-dead gorgeous beautiful woman
there's always someone dying
to get rid of them.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

WHY NOT?

There's a woman
who wants me
to shave
into her mirror.
She's also
a gambler,
though she wins,
she told me.
Texas Hold Em
doesn't appeal
to me
the way five card
does, but gambling
is gambling.

I told her
that I'm best
at playing
with myself,
with words,
I mean, letting
them tumble around
& land
with a freedom
I'm hard pressed
to allow
into other
areas
of my life.

I'll help you
enjoy yourself
despite yourself
she said
& smiled.
Maybe
she can?
We'll see.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

THE BONES OF GRATITUDE

Most men marry
the first woman
they've fucked--
hookers excepted;
those though,
when all is said
and done
were most likely
the more honest
of the two and
the hotter fuck.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2010-2013

ONE FOR SMOKIN' JOE

I'd just heard
on World News
that Smokin' Joe
had entered
hospice.
Liver cancer
had taken him
out.
How they go,
how they go,
all the ones you thought
would never go,
but they do. In this case
a rogue white cell
got to him; for others
it's simply old age
or natural decay,
For still others
a loss
of bravery
or spirit. Others feared
a drying up
of what made them
who they thought
they were
and took
an early
exit
like Ernie.
No matter,
how they bought it
it cost all of us
something--a diminishment
of a world
that has less and less
nourishment.
It is all TV now,
all scripted.
Fighters fight
once a year, maybe.
Poets are sucked
toward mics
& slams;
artists, auctions.
While junkies junk
and alchies drink
the sickness spreads
to precincts without
jurisdiction.

I saw Joe
up close once
in front of the old
Americana Hotel
on Seventh Ave.,
in the fifties.
He wore a full length
white mink coat and
a black felt pimp's hat
in a pimp neighborhood
before Disney
sanitized it
and made it safe
for fat Minnesota tourists.
I saw him fight live
four times, three
on closed circuit.
I rooted against him
the first three
and for him
at Nassau
when he fought Foreman.
He came out that last time
hooded
in white satin.
His head
had soaked
in brine,
as usual,
for half hour
before he dressed
for war.
He danced, he bounced,
he rolled his arms and shoulders,
took off his hood and shone
his stubbly head and face
to the crowd. Nobody knew
how much Ali had taken
out of him
until Foreman
marched across the apron
and hit him
once
and he slid back
as if he was sucked back
against the ring post.
Joe slithered
slowly
like brown cement
to the floor
and stayed
like that until
they came for him.

He tried to fight
a few more times.
And lost them all
badly. Even
the crooked doctors
would not sanction him
after those fiascos.
He opened a gym
in the poor slum
he came from
and slept near
the bags and the lineament
and the scars and the wins
and the cheers
and the women
and the men
and the jewelry
and the clothes
and the parasites
in a tiny room
plastered
with fight posters
in the back.

He said he hated Ali
but I don't think so.
The cruelty, yes;
the stupid humiliation
to sell seats, yes.
But not the fights, brother.
Not the fights.
To view them is a coward's sport,
a spectator's high.
But to be in them.
My God. To be in them,
round after round
and know
that nothing else existed
except death
is something that most of us,
unfortunately,
will live without,
never knowing
that kind
of bravery.

He was broke, of course.
But he had it once:
ate well, tipped well,
made love
to all manner
of creatures,
slept in beds
under silk
and perfumes,
and talked talked talked
to the shoeshine man
and presidents.
And that beats
not ever having it.
And so tonight,
I think of Smokin Joe,
and his last
few nights,
dining on morphine
instead of rare steak,
sipping tepid water,
through a bent straw
instead of champagne
in a flute,
I salute you
and those other heavyweight gods
who came before you
and the very few
who have yet
to arrive.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011