THERE IS NO GREATER THRILL

for a drug addict
than finding a drug
that you thought
had skipped out
on you.
Today,
it was a baby aspirin,
81 miligrams
in a tiny yellow Beyer dot
that helps thin my blood
in my heart holy clogged universe.
It was hiding
behind my coffee pot
and the thick black cord
connecting it
into the socket
behind that.
I had thought
I'd looked there yesterday
but musta missed it after
looking on the floor,
gas range and crack
between the icebox
& cleaning cabinet.
Shit, I'd said then,
and shook out
another pill.

It's not that I think
about medications
of all kinds
but obsess about them too.
If I wasn't taking drugs,
if I wasn't sick
who would I be?

Drugs have been my savior.
Drugs have been my confidant,
my muse, my benefactress and
my regulator; they've been the elixer
for this coward's blood:
They've gotten me up
in the morning & coaxed me into bed
at night giving me purpose
& dreams in this hellish game
of Truth or Consequences.

Soon, if I do everything right
or nothing at all, a door will open
on its own.
I've stashed Dramamine
every place I could think of
just in case.
Call me crazy
or call me Ishmael, I don't care.
But prepared
I will be.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

THE EBB & FLOW

of obsessions
are interesting
to observe
in others
& the self.
What draws one
compulsively
into a web
of repetition
is sticky
indeed.

For instance:
I've noticed
a lot of hits
on this blog
from Portugal
lately,
too many
to ignore,
& too many
for even me
to believe
that there
are lovers
for my work
in this country
I know nothing of
and know no one
who knows anything
of me.

There must be someone
with unsettled blood,
someone who's
bleeding,
someone whose cut
runs deep,
very deep.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015