A YEAR AGO TO THE DAY

I felt so goddamned good
I was riddled with guilt.
Don't ask me why
that was,
it just was.
And so
I didn't want to do anything,
(lest I jinx it),
until this strange mood
of feeling good
evaporated,
went away,
sucked up,
by my more natural stream
of venom
& recriminations;
until the vileness
of pleasntries
were denied
an easy passport
into my bloodstream
of doubt--
where all good poems live;
until I felt
normal again.

It figures
that today
was the day
I came across
whatever this is--
& will post it
against my better judgement
because, once again,
I'm feeling good
despite this topsy-turvy world
we're spinning on.
But soon
I will be unable
to call my shots:
eight ball, corner pocket...
Ya see,
see what I mean?
Simple, eh?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2020

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

IT'S DAYS LIKE THIS

when I'm feeling most fine,
when my body hums
with glucose regularity,
obeying the speed limits
of 80-120 defying its dead
insulin producing organ,
when words dance
like a mad Nureyev
in my brain,
when a woman
is preparing me dinner
while I get my heart
up to speed,
when tragedies zip by
without stopping...
that I most want a cigarette,
a shot of dope,
a whorey woman
with a sick grandmother,
when I want some madness
to descend
on top of my head
crashing like the cymbals
on Elvin Jone's drums;
I want something,
anything,
to show me
who the hell
I am.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

MY BLOCK

used to be hot:
Dylan Thomas drank himself
into St. Vincent's;
Delmore Schwartz
dreamt himself into suicide;
Eleanor Roosevelt funneled
her tits into a D cup
& her lesbian lovers;
Melville & Twain & Poe
scraped horseshit from their boots
& ambled and rambled about America
& God & sea journeys;
Pollock & deKooning
had fist fights
over brush strokes & pussy,
while Rothko thought of black
colors & early death while Klein
the black & white firmnament.

Now...
there are bankers
& banks...& kids
who still smell of piss
& freshly minted credit cards.
You,
or your parents,
have to be rich--
7 dollar ice teas,
& 15 dollar a pound laundries
demand no less.
"Art" is no longer a subject
but a laugh.
And I
can't get
a hardon
over much,
much less
poems
like this.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

SOME READERS

have complained
that the poems
have not come
with the frequency
they expect
from me.

I don't blame them;
I have the same complaint.

A poem
is like a boil
on your private
parts--you better lance it
before your privates poison
and everything goes:
music/food/love/sex.
The puss
needs expression
in the open market;
it needs air
&eyeballs&noses&mouths
smelling&seeing&tasting.
It needs to suffuse
the reader
with its shit.

I, for one,
will feel better.
And you,
quiet as it's kept,
will, too.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

A GREAT POEM HIDES

in the thumb
of a hitchhiker,
or the greed of a Queen
bumblebee; it's
a dollar found
hugging a sock
underneath
a torn pocket
of a barfly
after last call
is called.

It could by a map's mistake,
or the dried out tit
of a riverbed. Perhaps,
the first or
the last word
of a tortured phrase,
or a sentence
outliving a period.

The gods
are wise.
They know
that this
could be
a great poem,
but that's
up to you.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

I'VE NEVER BEEN VISITED BY THE DEAD

Maybe
they've been busy,
I've reasoned,
lighting the runways
for those
about to take off,
or land?
We all have our jobs
to do--like writing
this poem
in the dark.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

RUSSIAN ACTION

I seem to be
getting a lot of hits
on this blog
from old mother Russia.

I like that.

People of the earth;
people of history;
people who are nuts
in all the ways
I can understand:
literature nuts;
music nuts,
art nuts,
nut nuts.

My eighth grade english teacher,
Miss Edelman, my first crush
on an older woman, showed me
Dostoyevsky's C&P; Rasknolikov
dropped his ax
and cleaved my head
in two.
He was followed by Gogol,
& that old bedbug himself,
Mayakovsky. They're all
the soil's blood.

And I'd like to think
I am, too.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

SHE ASKED ME

to write her
a poem.
Ice,
I said,
warms
my winter
nights.
She leaned
back
on my couch
and opened
a button.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

BOUNCED AROUND

You don't know
what you're getting
into: an icebox
or cauldron.
You don't know
how the cord
you've come from
tightens
once it's
cut.
How unfortunate
not to have skins
like the rhino
or the freedom
of a fish.
Instead,
we're at the mercy,
(for such
an ungodly time),
of lunatics
who've been mothered
by other lunatics.
They're drunk
or broke or
broken or
both; they scream
& curse
& fondle
their charges.
They abandon
or ignore
or shame
because
they can.
And those
are the lucky ones.
They haven't been
bounced against walls,
or tied to their beds
for days or weeks.
They haven't been
pissed on
or touched
or fondled
or fucked.
But none
are really
lucky.
Early on
they believe
the truth
of the lie:
their fault
for the fights
or the coldness
or the ravings
of drunks; their fault
the world tilts
& slides
& slips
underneath
them.

I never really wanted kids;
I always knew
I was too fucked-up
in all the ways
that matter
to them; consistency
for one. I'm no hero.
Today I saw a few
newly minted diabetics:
nine and fourteen.
No family,
but too much family:
drunk and addled
and miffed that a
disease demanded more attention
than they did.
The kids were quiet,
but inside, their bodies
churned: their eyes
sensitive, ears receptive
to every and any
jungle sound. They will
have to develop
a better nose
for deceit
& truth
if they are to survive. And that
could take
a lifetime.

Coming home
the train
was empty
considering
the hour; perhaps
the rain and wind
kept the animals
in their cages.
I sat alone
in a corner
and let the underground
rock me. It felt good.
I'd been through
what those kids
were going through
now: the diabetes,
the blame,
the shame,
the wanting to fix
the unfixable. They will,
I knew, waste
a lot of time.
I didn't want
to get off the train
and passed my stop.
I'd eat out tonight.
And then write,
what turned out,
to be this poem.
Not very good,
I admit,
but I really
don't give
a fuck.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015