THERE IS NO GREATER THRILL

for a drug addict
than finding a drug
that you thought
had skipped out
on you.
Today,
it was a baby aspirin,
81 miligrams
in a tiny yellow Beyer dot
that helps thin my blood
in my heart holy clogged universe.
It was hiding
behind my coffee pot
and the thick black cord
connecting it
into the socket
behind that.
I had thought
I'd looked there yesterday
but musta missed it after
looking on the floor,
gas range and crack
between the icebox
& cleaning cabinet.
Shit, I'd said then,
and shook out
another pill.

It's not that I think
about medications
of all kinds
but obsess about them too.
If I wasn't taking drugs,
if I wasn't sick
who would I be?

Drugs have been my savior.
Drugs have been my confidant,
my muse, my benefactress and
my regulator; they've been the elixer
for this coward's blood:
They've gotten me up
in the morning & coaxed me into bed
at night giving me purpose
& dreams in this hellish game
of Truth or Consequences.

Soon, if I do everything right
or nothing at all, a door will open
on its own.
I've stashed Dramamine
every place I could think of
just in case.
Call me crazy
or call me Ishmael, I don't care.
But prepared
I will be.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

STICKY-NOTES

for your brain
comes preinstalled
from the manufacture
at no extra cost
to you; some work
and some do not--
as to why
we don't know.
They're boxed
& layered
with general divisions
& sub-divisions
like: Family,
Lovers, Sex, Food,
Pleasures, Pain,
Betrayals and
Not Yet Named and some
are left blank
with possibility.

Today, it was cancer
& The Babe & his daughter's death
at the age of 102.
I never had cancer,
never knew The Babe
and didn't know his daughter,
but I did have diabetes
and thought a lot about,
and gravitated toward,
dying & death at 11
seemingly going forward.
The Times had Julia's demise
noted & all I had to do
was click on it & there I was
at 12 remembering
The Babe not able to eat
the white of a hard-boiled egg
without blood
gushing from his gums
& pain indenting his body
into a jolting question mark.
My note had many
traumatic question marks:
how was I going to die?
how messy would it be?
who would be there
to hold my hand
and get me
from this place
to the next?
I was able to see
the starched white nurses'
starched white uniforms,
smell the disinfectant,
taste the bile
of fear, and fear
each minute yet to come.

I read his bio
61 years ago,
but it stuck
somewhere
in the stack
under Health
maybe Dying
maybe both.

Breathing
after the first breath
is dangerous.
It should come
with instructions
or warnings--
but then again,
no. they shouldn't--
it's a crap shoot--
let's leave it
at that.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

TICKLE THOSE 88's

Happy Birthday, Toni.
And thank you.
Thank you
for locating
my heart,
corroded as it was
(& is),
& pumped it back to life
at moments that I thought
it was failing.
You've done it
& are doing it
for fifty years.

Have as grand a time
as I am having
cracking open
your newest work.
Much love, baby,
N.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

NO, I DON'T FORGET MUCH

& I don't forgive much,
& so,
I don't have much--
except much to say
which really
isn't much
to speak of.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

ACT YOUR AGE!!!

And therein lies
my confusion:
I am
all ages
at all times;
I blow bubbles
as I blow by
reason; I cheat
on common sense tests;
I've found a home
on the cusp
in extremis;
I've indulged
a radical obediance.
I've flown high
on an electrical trapeez
naked, wondering
where the hell the bar is...

Under my pillow
I have a warehouse
of fantasies;
my sock drawer
is filled only
with holes
& secrets; I keep
your breath
inside my own
to shape the glassblower's art.

I need not get
any older
than I was
when a kid;
when madness
was vivid
& possibility
endless, when nothing
made sense
& feeling
& only feeling
suggested
an old & abiding
intelligence.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

YOU SEND ME

was Sam's crossover hit;
Monk was about to play
The Five Spot
for a month at a time.
The year was 1957
and I was about to crawl into a closet
with a ten year old girl.
I was friendly with her cousin
who lived around the corner from me
in Brooklyn. Ever play strip poker?
she asked. I can play Go Fish & War,
I countered. Ever see a girl's thing?
she asked. Just my mother's,
I countered. That doesn't count,
she said, you wanna see one?
I do. Yes I do.
OK, but you have to show me yours.
Alright...when?
Right now, stupid.
We were in her parent's living room
and the sun was pouring over us
lighting the sins we were surely
committing. But sin is delicious
anytime, anywhere, any age,
no matter if you know
what the hell you're doing
or not.
I slipped off my polo shirt
& squirmed out of my dungarees.
Now you, I said, holding fast
to my underwear.
She unbuttoned her white blouse
& took it off; nothing much
there. Stood up & wriggled
out of her blue & black checked skirt;
her Catholic school uniform
& placed herself before me.
Let's go into the closet, she said.
I didn't know precisely why
she said that, but I didn't argue
with experience.
She left the door open
and removed her panties.
I stared at it; it was
so smooth,
so contained,
I could have looked forever.
Now you, she said. Dazed,
I slipped them off
feeling the heat rise
in my neck & face.
What thrills I had
looking & touching & licking
trouble.

Somewhere Sam is sweetly
making love to a microphone;
& Monk, that lover
of the inexpressable note,
has heard what he alone
is able to hear & is dancing
around his keys.
In due time
I will find them both
and they will be part
of the whole, the whole
crazy thing
we call
memory.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

MISE EN SCENE, BEDROOM, GREENWICH VILLAGE, 2019

Naked,
on the edge
of my bed, surfing
back & forth
between The Warriors
& Law & Order--
Curry hits a 30 footer,
McCoy offers man one,
25 to life,
Warriors up by 5,
McCoy says, "take it or leave it,"
it's 9 degrees outside,
my nipples dance to the air
that startles them from afar;
eyes sift a tabletop full of medicines:
syringes, needles, insulin, inhalers,
and Lucky Strike
next to a Coke can ashtray;
one woman after the next
elbow each other aside,
languishing, dancing, whispering
the once in a lifetime kiss
they offer and take
away as Perry Mason ends
& The Twilight Zone begins (
the realization
that my parents are dead
effects me less
than the beautiful girl
nurturning flowers
by her graveside
) and I think:
how much gray
can one man take
before he goes mad;
how much uncertainty
before each word,
each poem, laughs
at you? Not much longer,
not much more,
I think, but that
is the problem
with thinking.
Hitchcock fits
into his silhoutte
as his & my
next half hour
begins.
I hope it's
s good one.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019