MEN, CARS, & DRIVING

Men need to believe
they are best
at two things:
driving
and fucking.
Fortunately,
I've not been privy
to see
up close
many instances
of them fucking,
but have been
trapped
in experiencing them
behind a wheel. (Of course,
I do not count any celluloid collusion
between the act and the editing.)

Most men know,
the wheel, the gas, the brake,
but not the intricacies
of the beast.
Their feet are too heavy;
their hands grip the wheel
too hard. They're too nervous
in crowds
or too dumb
when alone
to allow creation
or play.
They have little feel
for how they run:
the nuances of touch
for each model, each make,
each extension:
the stiffness
of a clutch
and its gradual
loosening;
the hard pedal
or flabby wheel;
how each will go
so far
and no more,
but knowing
all want to be brought
to the edge
of danger.

They've driven
a few cars
in their lives
and believe
they all run
on the same
gas. They are simply proud
of just putting the pump in,
nothing more. If it then goes,
they think,
they've done their job.
No wonder,
a great number of them,
get fired
or bored
because the car
refuses to run.

One day,
they will be unable
to put the key in.
The car will sit there
happy,
a big grin on its face
and hope
that younger hands
will find a way
to spark
the ignition
saving their best show
for last.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2010

THANK YOU...

for helping me
get laid
more often
than I had any right to:
Thank you
Smokey,
and Sam,
Marvin, Mary and
Curtis;
thank you
Shirelles, Marvelettes,
and Chiffons;
thanks folks
for helping
create the heat
the words
the whispers
when I was just feeling
my way along; trying
to just somehow touch a tit;
allowing my fingers
to snap
and unlock
a clasp or two.
Thank you Billie,
and Bud and Bird and Miles and Monk
and Dinah and Nina and Sarah
and T.S. and J. Alfred and crazy Ezra,
and Freddy N. and Immanuel the K,
and K as in Franz, and Coney Island
and Greenwich Village and times
of left handedness and black stockings
and no bras no brains no problem;
thank you Lenny
and Mort and George and Rich
for opening up
many a lady
through a laugh;
thank you Bobby D,
and Allen and Roi,
and Buk and Mark B. and Fran L and Skaggs,
and Phil and Toni.
Thank you
for giving me parts of you
that you didn't know
you'd given me
and,
after digestion,
was me
to them.
You made it easier
for me
to sucker punch
them
while singing
all these
beautiful songs
which became
my song.

And, for all
of the above you also get
a heartfelt and hardy:
FUCK YOU,
too.
Don't look so surprised--
you know exactly
what I mean.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2010

FEEDING THE PIGEONS

It is early
November: a damp, cold
and blustery day; a Dickensian zero
in the bones.
I push away
disgusted
from what is probably my last
dead-end job
and go down
for a smoke.
Park Ave South
looks as miserable and dirty
as a Rio favilla
without the humor
or violence.
My life
is 63 years spent
and fleeting fast
into the absence
of all desire:
sugar has eaten
parts of me
whole
for half a century:
my toes swim
with the fish';
a pump rewired with cat guts
and twine;
all my women,
young and old,
have smartened up;
my friends my few friends,
have died or simply
vanished or
have troubles of their own.
I stand,
or almost stand,
leaning against a pillar,
pull a fresh deck of smokes
out of my breast
pocket and before
smoke can reach my West Virginia lungs
the pigeons begin
to gather: black pigeons
and white pigeons, brown pigeons,
and gray pigeons, one-legged pigeons,
broken-winged pigeons, deranged pigeons,
nervous pigeons, dirty pigeons, and desperate
pigeons: rats without tails.
I know each of them
well. I, too, have lived like a tailless rat; born into
it, nurtured by it, held fast to its insane breast,
lived with it, guzzled it, in cells, in rooms
of daily rent, in my specially fashioned fence.
I've got by by luck
and instinct
and a curious
inquisition.
A security guard
comes out
to protect me.
He chases away
the ones who were slow
to get fed.
He looks at me.
I smile
and offer him
a cigarette.
He needs
to get out
of this world
quickly.
I know
the impossibility
and foolishness
of that for now
as I inhale
breathe out
and marvel
how good it feels
to be
alone.

Norman Savage
New York City, 2010

AND THEN THERE IS US...

We have done little
to deserve this beauty.
We found it like drunks
who stumbled
upon their bed
naked
and foul-smelling.

There is the silky stalk
of the cat,
or how the grass sways
in the reggae wind.
There is the trumpet blast
of the elephant's nose,
or the thick bark
around an aged tree.

We will all
go away soon.
And will take nothing
and leave nothing--
maybe a little plastic;
our only reason
for being here.
That would be
poetry.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2010

AN ASIDE

The gods
have been very good
to me; they've given
me what I've craved
knowing how bottomless
my hunger is,
in limited
doses: words, music,
dope, booze and women and
don't forget
misery--the sublimity
of an often time cruel,
and all too human world.
Had they been
less kind
I would never had known
the difference,
and neither
would you.

Norman Savage,
Greenwich Village, 2010

I USED TO BE

a great lover
and matador;
I fucked Liz Taylor
and Sophia Loren
on successive evenings
while Bardot patiently waited
her turn;
they could not fuck me
out, and the could not fuck me
up; I was beyond women
and money; I was a shade short
of immortal,
but was fast
closing in
on that.
I gave the ears
of bulls
to the ladies
that Ernie was with and
while on safari
with Papa
ate the lions
we shot
for dinner
and saved
the female pythons
for desert
afterward.
I shot pool
with Minnesota
in Minnesota
and hustled his balls
while he was trying
to hustle mine.
I was heavyweight champ
when fifteen rounds
meant something.
I made flowers grow
and Bluebirds sing.
I sat on my ass
for as long as I wanted
and worked
only as distraction.
I did everything better
than the best,
even lying,
having to remember
a lifetime
of days before.

You can believe this,
or not.
But I,
like most dreamers,
know the dream
well. And, like all things,
better
than you.

Norman Savage,
Greenwich Village, 2010

TWENTY-SIX YEARS TO THE DAY

I was lying
in an ICU
in the Bronx
out of my mind
from a controlled combination
of pain
and morphine
when a magician
came into the room.
She put a syringe
into an IV line
and a blast
of hot breath
breathed
into my system.
Kind, I thought,
her giving me a dose
before my four hour
due.
Curious,
I watched
her pull the lip
of the white gauze
that clung to the top
of my foot
where my four toes were
a moment ago.
My neck stretched
as I was about to see
what was so obviously
a trick.
She delicately gripped
at the first
half inch
the blood
was maroon,
and somewhat dry
as the pain
ricocheted
around my system;
and as she pulled
and pulled
and pulled
and pulled
it grew
more
crimson
and wet.
Christ,
I thought,
how much fucking gauze
is in that thing?
It truly was
magical, but please,
God, can the trick
be over.
I now had propped myself up
on my elbows
and felt my shoulders
and back
become bruised
and stiff. Still,
she pulled
and pulled
some more.
Finally,
it was done.
She disposed
the bloody gauze
into a receptacle,
opened a new package
and packed the whole thing
in. I marveled
at this; the simplicity
of taking out
and putting in.
If only living
and dying
were that simple.
But we know
nothing is that simple,
not even breathing.
The flowers know this,
the matadors and pimps,
the landlady' struggling
in their rooms alone,
while their tenants struggle
with the rent
and a way,
know this.
Even the fish,
who might have gotten a treat,
that evening,
with four toes,
had to wait
a long time
for what
to them
is surely
a delicacy;
you might even say,
a privilege.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2010