WHAT DO I DO

now that I'm too old
for love
but not love songs?
What if my tears
are for me
& a world
grown paunchy
& infirm?

I'm not gracious,
I know.
In fact,
more ravenous
as my stomach shrinks
from a diet of memories.

How do you feel
the first kiss
or the last
good one?
How do you breathe
that young breath
of candy-store bought powder
or an educated perfume?
How does your body shiver
when fingers,
other than yours,
unzips you?

It's time to declare
a "Do Over," a "Hindu;"
the ball hit a crack
or was taken by a strange wind
& spun
in a direction
unintended.
I want another shot
at these ancient mysteries.

And who knows?
I might even find you?
Again.
Perched on a ledge
ready to dive
& kindle
a wild river
or have nothing
on your hands
except time.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

THE HEAT IS ON

There will be coat hangers
in the B-B-Q
roasting inside the wombs
of newly minted teenagers
come this July 4th;
black bodies smoking
across lunch couners
of shame; queers
hustling white-haired
Senate tourists on docks
fetid with the scum
of dreams tipped overboard
lapping its splintered spew
against faggot piers
of politics.

I'd invest
in condoms
if I could
get a hardon--
which I can't.

I would watch
the fireworks
if I could
get inside
a cannon.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

BATTER UP!

All my life
I've either
been anxiously
early or
disastrously
late.
But I've managed
to foul off
pitch after pitch
while staying alive
in the batter's box.
A few times
I've even connected
with the fat
of the bat driving
the ball deep
into the outfield
only to see it
go foul
by inches.
Yes,
it was frustrating.
But no,
I was not defeated.
I'm still alive
taking my hacks,
biding my time
for when he makes
a mistake.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

GOD TAKES THE STAND

Do you, God,
swear to the tell the truth,
the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth,
so help you (...) God?

I DO..
and
(chuckling)
i don't.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

SUMMERTIME

For PP--each in our neighborhood's jungle

To be smoking reefer
& sipping a beer
on a hot stoop
cooling our heels
is one of the more sublime favors
bestowed in this concrete womb
of a city amidst the squalls
of summertime heat.
Poems are squeezed
from the sewers;
love is laced
in this Petri dish
of hard won escapes.
Each other's dreams
drips down the sticky legs
of denim & popsicle sticks.

You live within
windowsills of fame
and home has become
a bed of thorns.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

I DO

love
to torture
you
anyway I can.
The disease
of memory
makes it easy
to gain entry
& allow you
to do the rest.
Be a good girl
& open
the door.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

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