SHE MADE ME

watch
her undress
wanting
my tongue
to see
her scars.
Look
she said
how they curve
like a sorcerer's trick
disappearing
under a thick coat
of fur.
Touch them,
she said,
they come alive
under pressures
and penalties.
I laid back
whimpering.
I'd seen it
before
but couldn't
remember
the number
on her
door.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

SHE TOLD ME

her dream
of swimming
in a sea
of teeth
yellowed
by ovens
of hate.
What
would she
have me
do?

A storm
was at
our elbow.
We bowed
to belief
born of
grief's shadows.
How
had we come
to such sadness?

We dined
on Mulligan Stew
from an old Chinaman's curfew;
the tin forces
of a steely wind
braced us
for the lactating
commercial.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

LIFE

The laughing dice
and the bored stickmen
wait
for the next
shooter.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

TRUMP THIS!!!

I gotta Big Cock!
That's right! Big!
Very Big!
I mean Big!
Cock.
Big.
My father had a big one.
Grandfather, too.
Come from a long line
of Big Cocks!
Yes, I do! Big.
My great great grandfather
had a schlong so big
that after he took a piss
he didn't shake it out,
he had to kick the fuckin thing.
That's right.
Big!
One tough man.
And a smart man.
Went to The Yukon
in the Gold Rush days.
He had a huge huge huge
Penis. Yes he did.
Opened a whorehouse
& a restaurant;
he fucked em
& fed em. That's right.
Talk about pole numbers!
What a pole he had!

The train is leaving
the station; the sad-eyed
ladies are rowing home;
the Big Top
is shuttered
as the laughing bones
lie bleaching
in the sun.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

IT FEELS GOOD

to have dinner
with a female
again
and watch
her fingers
slice her need
into small pieces;
how deft she is
with a knife & fork
working her way
through a thicket
of motives.

Neither of us
are in a rush
to move toward
dessert; we know
we will arrive
there soon enough.
There is no danger
of running out
of room
for that.

Some things
never get
old.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

THE GIRLS OF SENEGAL

think I'm funny
when I flirt with them.
I'd have to be dead
not to--
that's how beautiful
they are;
the most precious fruit
in a supermarket
of extravagance.

They are lit
from the inside;
their blue/black skin
glows with the kind of light
many people, who are smart,
will read by.

You are not old mister,
no,no,no, Mamouda and Neeva sing,
we do not see age,
different in my country.
I come from a Kleenex culture,
I tell them, "Use once,
then throw away."
They laugh
and know
it's true.

I shop there
for many reasons:
it's closer
to my leaden
& lurching step;
the food is better;
the butcher slips
me a steak
& charges me
for chicken;
but it's the girls
who mean the most;
it's the girls
who tell me
not to worry;
it's the girls
who bring me food
when I'm sick
or miserable;
or out of sorts;
it's the girls
who bring me gifts
from their Senegalese village:
a painting, a bracelet,
a picture of their family.

And so I spend
what little money I have
to be loved
even now
at my age. I'm a poet
you see,
stupid, irrational
in regard
to things
lesser beings
think of as rational:
money,
health,
possessions.
If I did that,
I believe,
I'd waste
energy,
precious
energy.
Better to contemplate
love
and God,
and cherish
victories
no matter
how slight.
Somebody
has to
suffer
&
dance.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

YES MOMMY, OF COURSE, DADDY

always followed
by the silent
Fuck You
writ large
or small
once the lights
dimmed, the doors
closed, the mice
scurry and shadows
leave behind fears
like droppings
and your demons
romp.
Get out
the knife,
cut along
the perforation;
invert
the spike,
jiggle the vein,
ride the white horse,
purge the loving dinner,
slip your panties
off those frozen ankles.

How good
being bad
feels.

The gasoline
smells so good
each time
I fill the tank.
Almost as good
as the mimeograph
machine smelled
as I printed copies
of "Ode On A Grecian Urn"
for Miss Edelman's class
on a hot and pregnant day
sixty years ago
tomorrow imagining
my fingers fingering
her breast, my mouth
in her ear,
the ink still wet,
the pages moist,
I wept from excitement.

I sat next to
an old colored woman
on the crosstown bus.
She'd sowed a mean leopard print
onto her denim shirt
and had a leopard hat on her Sunday morning perm,
red nails, buffed, and red lipstick sitting proud
on her lips, I inhaled her
renegade blues walking up and down the aisle.
A hard-headed lover, and head turner,
stubborn, opinionated,
twisted with abandon,
we knew what stop
to get off
and off
we got.

Mommy,
I said.
Yes, Daddy,
whatchowantsugar?
Your sweet self,
I replied,
Come and get it.
The demons stood back
and let me go get near.

It was only Wednesday;
and I'm off tomorrow.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016