OPEN WIDE

Sitting in my dentist's office
waiting
for new choppers I have time
to kill; I'm excellent
at that after all
the practice I've had.
Though now,
I must say,
"time" is paying
me back. Unfortunately,
for him,
there's less and less
of me to kill.
But
the sonofabith
still finds
more of me
to work with.

I've brought a book,
but my concentration
is not there
for that.
The dentist
& dentist offices
freak me out--too much
real pain
produces
too much
logic.

I look out
the square pane
of glass
on the 16th floor
overlooking what
used to be
the garment district
in New York City.
I can see ten
water towers on top
of fifty buildings,
a shadow of a big sign
for Max the Furrier,
no better quality,
no better price, the red bricks
smeared with black city grime
supporting massive air-conditioning units
cooling bleached blondes
dancing on the poles below.
The sidewalk gum
that sticks to my shoe's soul
tells me more
than all the coral reefs
and rain forests.
The Aborigines
and Yanomami
would interest me
if I were Levi-Straus,
but I'm not.
Instead,
I've watched Jewish
& Italian families
break bread
on Sundays
& knew
the quiet hatred
hardening between
the slices.
It told me more
than The Grand Canyon
& polar icecaps
& a million books
on psychology,
economics,
& making yourself
attractive.

I was lucky
to find a decent
dentist who takes
Medicaid after my denture
snapped.
Hell, I wore the damn thing
for fifteen years. I'm like that
with most of my stuff. My underwear
has to turn into spores
before I let it blow away.
My fellow patients
are all on the dole
as well.
We're all comfortable
with the game: I'll take
as much as I can; my dentist
will bill for as much as he can;
his landlord will get as much as he can.
What else can you possibly learn
from nature?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014

SWOLLEN EGO & EMPTY POCKETS

Story of my life. Which just got published, on Smashwords. JUNK SICK: CONFESSIONS OF AN UNCONTROLLED DIABETIC. I'd thought a few months previously that it was going to be published by a prestigious publishing house here in NYC until the shit hit the fan and my agent called and said, sorry, ain't gonna happen. Shit, I thought, been writing for forty years, had some success with small press' in the late 60's, early 70's, and had been working on the memoir nearly 25 years. She told me to hold tight and work on the novel I began six months ago. Damn, I might be dead by that time. My body began to betray me at 11 when I got diabetes and held fast through 45 years of junk, booze, assorted pills, love affairs, jobs, a marriage and near homelessness. Lemme try to see if there's another way.
Artists are a strange breed: either they're sucking your blood or sucking your cock. Drunks and junkies live on the edges as well: grandiose doormats. I felt pretty good getting some air with the book and like a goddamn moron going into this mind numbing job six days a week, 10-12 hours a day, trying to pay my rent. I guess I need the tension.
I'll do what I can to keep this blog humming, but writing for me is not a day to day thing. Sometimes I want to stay in bed or scratch my ass and not work. In fact, each day I don't have to work is some kind of victory for me. So if I miss a few days you know am either taking it easy or stringing up a noose, or up on a cross, or escaping into an easy delusion. But hold fast, and I'll try to do the same.
The following links are to my memoir and interview. The third link is to a piece I read in The New York Times today. It made me ashamed to call myself an artist.

http://smashwords.com/books/view/715
Interview : http://blog.smashwords.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/arts/design/01sont.html