SOMEWHERE TODAY

a little boy will be running
from a death grip
of a father's hands
and a little girl
from his cock.
Somewhere today
that little boy
will begin to marry
his mother
over and over again
and that little girl
will bend
to the black heel
of a German boot.
Our task,
& our terror,
is to unravel
the dream.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

A DEATH RATTLE FROM CALVARY

Lincoln Road, Miami Beach,
hot as a motherfucker,
I moved slowly,
next to my father,
on his walker,
as we took our perch
outside Books & Co.,
me pretending
to be smart,
& he being
his cunt hound self,
watching the parade
of pussy squirt
by. I'd bought us
ten dollar chocolate ices
& twenty dollar Romeo et Juliet cigars
figuring we had one good afternoon left
to figure it out
but never did.
It might have been the heat
that swelled our egos
or our limited capacity
for love
that shrunk our worlds,
but whatever it was
it eviscerated speech
& we were both
grateful for that
I knew.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

BARNEY

was a gentle man
& a gentle soul.
He was my father's father
and lived to ninety-seven
dying in his sleep
unlike his wife, thirty years
his junior, who died
in her late sixties
fat & cancer ridden,
angry & manipulative
until her last breath.

He taught me to whittle
& play Pinochle, as I watched
him smoke Camels, sip whiskey
& shadow box to the fights on TV.
It was whispered
that he didn't care
who his wife was fucking--
as long as it was not him.

I've been in
a sentimental mood of late,
as if Ellington & Coltrane
looped around my brain
continuously. Maybe
it means
the end
of things
or maybe
another turn?
I don't care
to reason
with that;
I only care
to travel.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

ONE FOR MY OL' MAN, BIG MICK

"Norm,"
he said to me once
when I was quite young,
"those 'short hairs'
on a woman's pussy
are stronger
than the cables
that hold up bridges."
I laughed.
I'd been fucking
by then
anytime I could
(of course)
but was still sixteen
or so.
He said this to me
in the presence
of a wise guy
friend of his
in some Canarsie lounge
in Brooklyn
in the sixties.
The wise guy
shook his head
in agreement,
drew on his Camel,
and snickered as well.
They knew
something
I didn't.

Until now.

I never knew
or felt
that kind of love
from my side
of the fence;
never knew
the pull,
the draw,
the obsession,
or strength.
Never knew
how powerful
a thing
one woman's pussy
could be.

Until now.

It's a mighty thing.
A miserable cunt
of a thing.
A Bermuda Triangle
of pain.

Sure,
I thought I was in love
many times before;
and sure,
it didn't work;
and sure,
there was a hangover
for however long there was--
but they passed
--sometimes like piss
and sometimes like a kidney stone,
but they passed.

This one,
has sealed all the doors,
and fires back.


It's good to know
I'm just
one of the guys.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013