IT WOULD BE SILLY

One For the Old Geezers

to try
& lie
to you
now.
You know
I'll try.
I know
I'll try.
I promise
to resist.

Some
have noticed
a diminishment
of poems
of late.
Some
have even
inquired.
No,
I tell them,
it's the gods
that destroy
& make men mad,
not I. I am ready
I assure them
and am merely
waiting like any
good Christian
to receive
what is given.
I tell them,
take heart,
I still want to fuck
every woman I see,
& more importantly,
they want to still fuck me.
(I'm sure they know,
as I do,
that's only half true).
Yes, I still imagine
nipples naked with need
of varying length
& sweetness & color;
yes, I still taste
different heated nectars of emissions.

And the words still come
but slower; better,
perhaps, but slower.
And memories perfect
in their lies, pile up
on runways waiting
for this infernal fog to lift
but stubbornly clings
to the sides of wings preventing
full flight:
fully in control of exceleration,
the Porsche obeying my instincts,
leaning into a corner at fifty,
a magician's inner stroke
of light's genius;
the proper word to light
the inner demons of a cueball
& bank life's mystery & madness--
a sweet narcissism
of self-serving
excellence.

There will be
more poems,
good & bad
after this;
how many
is not for me
to say.
I'm sure
"slowing down"
is an "art"
too, but one
I haven't
mastered
yet.
I've been too busy
trying to work
on it.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

I'M CLOSING IN

on two hundred pages
and figure I'm a little more
than half way done.
I also know
where it's going,
though I have no idea
of how
it's going
to get
there.
I could say,
I'm confused,
but that's not true;
confusion
is just
my normal state
that no one word
describes, it's part
of me.
I'll take that
anytime.
The word gods
have been
very very
good to me;
they always
have.
It's a Christmas gift
and New Year harbinger
of allowing me to do
what I do best:
play with myself.

I'm bloated
with words; rabbit
pregnant pushing
out poems
& paragraphs
& pages.
But
there is
a cost.
If you fuck
with those gods
you fuck with losing
what those gods have granted.
You believe
that there will always
be another girlfriend,
but there might not be
another poem
about her. History
has told you that.

I have no intention
of returning the gift
that fits so well
& feels so good.
Words of cashmere
and silk; words
that taste good;
words that linger
like the glow
around the bulb
after you turn-off
the light.

And I am a junkie
on that kind of run.
I've got enough
dope for tonight
& a wake-up shot
in the morning.
What else
is there
for a junkie
to know?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014