EVERY DAY, A HOT, STEAMY, CONEY ISLAND SUMMER

A carousel of women
encircle my brain;
some demur & lovely
in their tease
& some fierce & subversive,
all locked for a moment
in a terrible beauty
& embrace
of my choosing
what to remember
and why
to remember it.
Eyes wide
with panic--
or is it fear
--proudly prancing
their manes dancing to deities
of visions sung loudly
proclaiming my birth
and my lies.

Yes,
my memories
oiled up
& waiting
to be caught
in this arcade,
this hothouse
of simulacrums

while my mother hides
inside the ride,
clocking my action,
judging,
finger pointing,
wagging her stiletto like tongue,
cursing my infidelities now,
then, and those to come
to term
leaving her free
to pull the levers
and adjust.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

JUST ASKIN'

What runs through her mind
as she decides
to fuck me?

Does she wait
for her molecules to heat
or is it more of a calculation
of need?

How does her body
shout at her; what demands
does it make?

How does it oil itself?

How does her thighs widen
in welcome; her lips moisten?

Or does terror seize the moment?
Contracting vice-like
her senses that allow
no pleasure, no acknowledgement
of nature's reward
for civilization's fascism?

Does she know
and does it matter
if it's me
inside her
& what part
of me is
inside her?

And does she expect
a bloody rose
or crucifixtion
afterwards?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

ONE OF THE ONES

who I made room for,
rearranged the furniture,
put on a new coat of paint.
I had to,
so much was I drawn
to her scent,
and her eyes,
brown & flecked with greens,
so much was I drawn
into her cunt
& the ways
of enchantment.
She rouged her nipples
& perfumed her body.
In the dead
of winter fucked me
in a suicide ward
propped against
my bathroom door.
We had drinks with Mailer,
in Provincetown on a frigid February night
as he tried to make her
& she demured but refused me entry
later in our wooden motel
near the sand dunes.
Angrily, I fucked her
in the ass, her submission
a false delicacy
as we tumbled
into arguments
about poetry
and maturity
and reality
and other
insolvables.
I would wait
on the streets
where I knew she walked
and ran into her
by accident
and we'd pick it up
again.
She found me
at St. Mark's Church
waiting on a Bukowski reading
and coaxed me
into the balcony
& took me in her mouth
while he read below.
We were in & out
of each other's blood
for decades.
And still are.
Both in our seventies
and not yet ready
to call it a day.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

MOVE OVER MOM...MORE THAN A SOMEWHAT RANCID PLEA

some other women
want to fuck me
and you guard the gates
like you own me.

Don't be selfish,
let them
get under the covers
too. Big bed,
plenty of space
in my head
& yours.

You've had me
so long
& I've grown so old
there's not much danger
in you not going
into the dirt with me.

And they're so young
& so beautiful
& so foolish
& forgetfull
& eager
to please.
Yes, smaller breasts,
yes, gentile minds,
yes, making statements
with their pussies;
yes, from Senagal,
from the lower east side,
Jamaica, Princeton, jail,
but they know
my heart
& where it runs
along a long line
of blues singes.

I've sponged up
your neurosis
like it was milk.
Your shelf life
seems to be past.
So before
you curdle
and my belly bloats,
ease up,
& let up,
& please
move the hell over--
I've got someone
coming over.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

I STUCK

to her neurosis
like a velcro strip--
no matter
how many times
I tried
to extricate
my foot
from my mouth,
or her ass,
it held fast.
I pulled
every muscle
in my goddamn body
and have been
in traction
for the past
three years.

So much
for therapy!

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

FUCK WALTER MISCHEL

and his marshmellow test.
Who in their right mind
would wait a year to eat
two marshmellows when
you can eat one now?
And that's supposed to tell me
who will cure cancer
and who will die of cancer?
Gimme the marshmellow
now. I've been
a heat seeking
guided pleasure missle
before I knew what pleasure was:
put a bag of dope,
a scotch neat,
a jelly bean or two or three, or a hundred thousand,
or Milky Way,
a piece of ass, a pair of tits,
three of a kind, or Royal Flush,
even a parting of lips
in front of me,
and I'm a gonner.
How about a warm apple pie
cradling a Hagan-Daz scoop of vanilla--
I'd crawl over my mother
to get next to that.
Wait a year!? Are you outta yer mind!?
I want to get the fuck outta me now,
motherfucker. What is pleasure about?
I want to lose myself; I want to get lost:
Lost in wine, in women, in poetry, in song.
That is how you find things
out. You lose control, you go crazy...
for a second, a week, a month, years.
Unfortunately,
most don't.
What horrible lives
they must lead.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

LIBIDOBESETZUNG WHILE ON A CAROUSEL OF SHIT

Your pussy rides
the middle horse,
the horse
that rears up,
while death sits still
at your side
behind you
& in front.
I cannot
get past them
& think:
I really
don't want to.
For where would I be
if I weren't digging
a grave with you
or without you,
inside you
or pushing
against the steel
of your heart?
I know now
what happens
after a man finds
a cunt that fits--
he waits
like a child
for the brass ring
to come 'round again
while the grave beckons
my name to be written--
like breath
on a mirror.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

WE USE WHAT WE GOT (every little bitty thing) THAT GOD GAVE US

like guns
& pocket mirrors;
like a hairy fist,
or a fast thumb;
like tits
on a '55 Cadillac's bumper
put in a push-up bra,
or a chiseled jaw
bracing a British accent;
we use our parent's wealth,
or food stamped passivity.
We use our reputation,
the written word,
stuttering,
or long legs leading to mysterious fortunes.
We play humor, twist pathos, dance with angels
or devils or landlords or tax collectors--
all that dross,
--secrets & solitudes
and the desperation
of others;
vanity/poverty
& holidays of blue suicides,
big dicks & tight cunts
snapping shut or dribbling
out the clock;
sophisticated offhandedness,
construction sweat,
a beaten fighter's courage,
a hooker's scars,
a priest's purity--
what we got,
is what we use.
I do it.
You do it.
We all do it
in the service
of love,
like the worm,
like the snake,
like the slug.
Everywhere.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

C'est Le Guerre

A million lips & words
& fingers & smells
& false starts;
a hundred thousand zippers
pulled
up & down
a half million times
with hairs caught
in steel teeth &
two million pimples
popped a half billion
fumbling & rumblings
& phones falling out
of their cradles
by silence & midnight
forays into forests
of motives & maybe
a urinary infection
or two beside a pregnancy
& cold linoleum abortions
decided in extremis...

& now
little
laughs,
but
safety.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

SOFT FUEL

is the touch of a woman
on my skin. They shatter darkness
inside my soul
& stretch
what cannot be
into a homeostasis
of hope.
How often have they
injected a casual touch
into a crowning validation;
how they allow me
to preen or crow
without pretense or prevarication.
They have lent me
courage with a glance
& stemmed the fears
of a heart gone mad
from reality.
Sometimes,
I wish to go inside them
& sleep, nestled,
curled up,
in their natural bed
of curlicues
& mysteries.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

MOST EVERYTHING

bugs me
these days:
a vein
resistant
to liquids,
a candy colored
blemish
of fear
in the cheeks
of a baby's smile.
The passage
of years
have set
my teeth
on edge:
The price
of toilet paper
or the toil
of buses
wailing
from the grim
silence of
travelers
risks
gunfire
and chafed
hearts.
My woman
keeps to
herself.
She has prepared
a dinner
she doesn't expect
to eat
with consequence.
Luckily,
I do not
come home.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

I'VE ORDERED A WOMAN

from Amazon:
used,
dog-eared,
creased,
& underlined.
But you know men:
they make a million mistakes
when it comes to reading
women; they treat
the important trivial
& mistake madness
for difficulties.
I'll read it
myself
and let you know.
Meanwhile,
I choose regular shipping;
I want to have
& want her to have
the juice
of expectation.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

A BAD LUCK WOMAN

"Many a good man has been put under a bridge by a woman."
--Henry Chinaski

and she's all mine.
She was sick & suicidal
when she found me.
Just the kind I like.
I got her well
& she thanked me
by twisting the knife
into my innards
like she was twirling spaghetti.
She was Faye
& I was Jack
and this was Chinatown.

I couldn't quit her.
I couldn't quit her
before it cost me my job,
my money, my sanity and
nearly my pad--eviction notices
blanketed my door. Her absence
bothered me more than anything real could.
But I fought
the good fight
until her boil
became a pimple
that I sometimes,
even to this day,
absentmindedly rub.
My poems
as my life
doesn't concern her;
she cares
only if I still care
about her; only
in that regard
she's like
the rest of us.
I do not say
this is good
or bad but is...
until yesterday...

I saw that someone
from Canada peeked into my blog.
I had that feeling
that we all have
from time to time: anxious,
troubling and worse still,
curious.
I contacted the three readers
I have up there.
No, they said, not them.

Later in the a.m. I was woken
by a stiff white light
shining into my eyes & the outline
of a monster with a peaked hat.
There's a fire, the voice said,
sorry to wake you like this, but you have to get up and out; too much smoke in here.
I reached for my sweats and sweatshirt and slippers.
I walked out into my hall where six or seven other firemen were doing their thing.
I noticed my lock was busted, its entrails hanging by a thread.
Everything's OK now, one said, sorry about the lock, but we had to get in.
Yeah, I said, it's OK.

I was saving money to buy a comfortable chair and light stand so I could read and watch whatever.
That's all gone: 400 for a lock and house call; New York's a stick-up without a gun.
She probably knew that. I don't know how but
I know she knew
that.
Chop Suey anyone?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

SATURDAY NIGHT ON THE GERIATRIC EXPRESS

"I'm gonna get that limp lookin
sorry-assed piece of meat up...up...up,
yeh here me, up!"
She sounded like The Fifth Dimension.
"Here, take this," she said,
and pushed a few pills at me.
I took em.
It still might be a lot of work,
I cautioned.
"Work. Shit. That's what I live for:
Challenges!"
She was young. Energetic.
I was old. Nearly finished.
We made a funny couple.
The devil was in
both of us.
I might outlive
everybody
she whispered
when it was
over.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

FIRSTS:

Asking Maxine out
for a hot fudge ice-cream sundae
when I was six and summoning up
the courage to take her hand
on our secret path back home;
swimming without my father's arms
underneath me & feeling the waters pull;
surfing on asphalt on a tar spun Brooklyn street,
the training wheels off
with only my own power & balance to guide me;
a hardball sliding into my Rawlings oiled glove
and hitting a liquid smart drive on the fat of the bat;
having courage in the darkness
& the high spun arc of magisterial wide screen technicolor
coming on at once like LSD kid style; melted popcorn
oozing between my fingers licking the tips;
the first time my dick moved straight up
all by itself;
the first time I mastered making a bridge
so the pool cue slid easily between my fingers;
the first time the ball touched nothing
but twine and the swoosh it made;
the first touch of silk;
or the smell of my dog wet
from the spring rains;
the first time I saw Corinne
and moved toward her without
knowing why; the first smell
from a mimeograph machine or
gasoline pump, paper solvent
or horse manure or man sweat
after a summer's football game
on the beach; the first pull
on a stick of reefer or opium pipe
and the snake that slithered up
my spine and around my shoulders
and up into my brain;
the first time I realized Coltrane
or Monk or Miles or Billie or Nina;
the first time I knew I really existed
and found the keys into Joyce's pocket;
sighting Diane behind a glove counter & knew
how love can come from behind and mug you.
It has been a long slow kiss
to the fates and it has been
sublime.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

JEWISH EXPOSURE

Some women
have been shielded
from Jews
their entire lives.
They've come
from the backwaters
of Michigan, Wisconsin,
Mars; somewhere where
no circumcisions never
needed to knit
or unravel.
They've never been
around charming Jews,
tough Jews,
shrewd Jews,
smart Jews
in one chosen package.
They've never been romanced
and seduced and
lied to and
liked it.

I've met
and bedded
many.

I'll get this;
you leave
the tip.

Our eyes caught
and locked.
We knew
what came
next and it didn't
have a name.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

WITHOUT THINKING

a hand finds
the back of my neck
and casually rests
soothing the wrinkles
inside my head
with her fingers
brushing
the tops of drums.
How lovely
is that in
the early evening
as the madness of the day
airs itself out
and a gentleness
eases itself in--
like listening to Al Green
Backing Up the Train.
You pray a little
you will never speak again
or hear any language that can't
be sung.
You know,
of course,
you've done nothing
to deserve this kindness
except live
through another day
of hell.
"Baby,
that feels so good,"
you want to say,
but don't.
Instead you note
the passage of time:
why it feels this miraculous
at seventy
as it did
at seventeen;
and there I am
still bewildered
at how women know
where to touch you
and when.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017

THE YEAR CHANGES, BUT THE UNDERWEAR REMAINS THE SAME

For Puma, with love...


Men still follow
behind women
quietly
as they are led
into supermarkets,
clothing stores,
restaurants,
movie theaters,
looking aimlessly about
as they submit
to the leash,
if not the lash,
of the female
& lean
into their own
confusion.

Jesus, too,
must have noticed
the Jaws of Death
when he followed
that old whore
to her corner
and watched her
throw-out her line
& began to fish
for her daily bread.
He looked about
trying to believe
he was concentrating
on something divine
but knowing it was
rejection
that had him coming
back for more.

Too often
I find myself
reading ingredients
on the backs of cans
while the woman I'm with
moves forward
with our lives.
I've been lucky
having always someone
who knows
how to dance.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 201

MY GIRLFRIEND SAYS

I talk too much;
I give away
too many secrets.
They're just words,
I say; no one
gives much of a shit
one way or another.
Bullshit, she says,
if you get a once in a blue moon hardon
Russia knows, Spain knows,
the fucking Ukraine knows,
and God forbid if I ask you
to eat my pussy, well,
the whole goddamn world has to know
how good you are to me!
But baby, that's what a poet does:
Inspire.
O, shut the fuck up
and get down there.

You never argue
with a woman
gone mad
with desire.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

I'VE BEEN LOVED

by women past
& present
many years older
or younger who
I love
when not too much
in love
with myself.
In each affair
I've given
everything
I couldn't
hold back.
Women who've been
to finishing schools
& rouged their nipples
& dressed before bed
in French silk taffeta,
and those who've spent
endless nights on open grates
on east village sidewalks
and brought weapons
wrapped with sex
& mindfulness
into our cradle.
They have ways
about them;
ways of doing
& of being done;
they bleed
style. They have monstrous
needs; they drink their own milk.
They drip neurosis
freely to mouths greedy
& grateful.

One day the words
will have moved on
to greener pastures--
then it will be over
for me
but not yet.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016