THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER

I now dress,
when I do,
exclusively
in blacks and blues--
I've never much believed
in subtlety
and have decided
to show it.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2012

WOMBS OF BLOOD KNOTS

My mother's face,
rigid and angry,
stared straight-up
to a heightened mirror
only she could see.
Her cheek,
when I pressed my lips against it,
seemed to be stuffed
with dry ice
so that my flesh
almost stuck to hers.
It wasn't much different
when she was alive
except now she was framed
in a cardboard box
the funeral home
funneled her into.
Nobody was there
except for my father who
didn't much like her
either. She managed
to tyrannize both of us:
he by her cold;
me by the heat
of betrayal each time
I marched to my own beat,
which was often.
Many times I tried
to get her over
the line offering her
some pot or whiskey
or wine, but
after trying reefer once
and losing herself,
she never did it again:
Too much freedom
scared her.

I've lived in a country
of myths: God, country
and family. Each
was bad, but family
was worst. I've read
the lives of writers,
painters, musicians, thieves,
murderers, pedophiles, bank
presidents, business moguls
and politicians;
have heard thousands
of mother testimonials
given by mouths of drunks
and addicts, hollywood
stars who leaked
with neurosis and cruelty,
selfishness and narcissism,
and saw, if you simply scratched
the surface, mom's face,
pulling the strings.
I am sure,
there are those
who have come through fine:
well-rounded, decent, and honest.
But those folks
usually leave nothing behind
except more of us. Which
is rather sad.
Give me
the jagged ones,
the freaks,
the Celines' and Rimbaud'
the Vinnie' and Vans and Marlons',
who, when they touch something,
they cut it
and leave some blood
some stain some proof
that they were here.

It took me quite some time
to come to that and embrace
it, and ask it to dance,
even while knowing
my mother would never
let herself be seen
with a smile on her face
or expectation
in her green eyes--
like mine.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2012

TOUGH CHICKS AND TOUGH BROADS: STIR, SIMMER

What attracted me
were those who
were not part of my tribe or
if they were,
crossed over
into more dangerous waters.
Coney Island
in the fifties and sixties
was my lab
and my father,
a disappointed gangster
at heart,
gave me a free study hall pass.

Those Jewish girls
seemed so tame
while those Italian chicks
had that hip twitchy way
about them, that olive skin,
those take me and fuck me eyes,
that way of talkin
that was straight street.
They had names like Cookie,
and Marie and Nicki; they showed
off their blue school uniforms
with cum stains on their skirts;
they could care less about silverware,
or college, or high school for that matter;
they instead worried over whether Johnny
was gonna beat whatever rap
he was gonna get from the judge
or his father.

Sundays, we'd drive
to another part of Brooklyn,
another section where
old men sat and played gin
in social clubs and where
their wives were home
making Sunday gravy,
occasionally tasting
with a long wooden spoon
from big pots of bubbling
thick tomato sauce.
My father had usually bought
something from them that week,
something that fell
from the back of a truck, or
gave them some dough
to put on the street,
or was close enough to go
to the horse track or a boxing match with.
Their wives had names
like Cynthia or Mary or Marie or Sylvia;
most had bad skin, dyed blond hair,
black roots and smoked long
cigarettes like Pall Mall or Benson and Hedges.
They all sipped highballs
as they worked,
and the tipsier they got
the more they laughed
and the more they laughed
the more they divulged
about their fucking
or lack thereof
or finding their daughter's tongue
down the mouth of a hoodlum
in training or giving their kid's teacher
a smack for getting in the way
of a collection or a stick-up,
or just because they were
who they were.

I'd see these women
age and become things
they never thought they would:
on a barstool, late at night,
still in Brooklyn,
still this side of old,
sipping Manhattans
waiting
for a call
or for the bartender
to tell them
where to go
at what time. Tiredly,
she'd check her watch
and know she had two hours
to kill
among the many hours
already dead and ask
for another.

I'm sure
as I'm winding down
like a cheap watch,
there are others
just beginning
to wind their stems.
They have no idea
what's before them,
and neither do I.
They could find themselves
in The White House
or a madhouse
for all I know
or care.
This poem
wasn't meant to caution,
or instruct or do
much of anything
except recall
for me
those days past
when I was drawn
to strange creatures
who were whores
as well as saints
with kick-ass
attitudes all.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2012

O SOLO MIO

My spleen; my liver; my heart; my lungs;
my cock; my cunt; my balls; my eggs;
my eyes; my ears; my tongue; my teeth;
my arms; my legs; my toes; my fingers;
my car; my truck; my brain; my ideas;
my blood; my viscera; my jism; my cum;
my tits; my milk; my house; my oven;
my pots; my pans; my money; my money;
my money; my stocks; my bonds; my property;
my feelings; my shirts; my pants; my panties;
my briefs; my socks; my leggings; my shoes;
my desires; my fears; my purpose; my mucus;
my thoughts; my body; my roots;
my success...

my failures,
however,
are yours
and yours alone
for not loving enough
what is mine.

Bow wow, bow wow, bow wow.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 1981

THE KID

for Stevie Cauthon

She wanted it
first thing
this morning not knowing
that my dick
hardly ever rose
with the sun, (last night liquored up & bent
outa shape was easy enough...her being fresh pussy
didn’t hurt either.) But now, Christ....

She did know;
her legs knew;
her ankles locked knew;
her hands were O
so gentle
as we turned
into the stretch.
I felt the rise
that pushes God aside.
No whip,
no spurs,
no cheap muscle.

I probably paid
11, 12 dollars & change.


Norman Savage
Greenwich Village
Spring, 1977

LOOKING FOR PREY

I've got one day
a week
to get out
of my lair
and into the jungle
to line up the prey
I'll devour
over the next six days.
In-between
is spent
working for the hole
I shit in.
I'm an animal
of the worst sort--
old, trapped,
but still needing
to go on.

It's gotten warm
on this savannah,
and so I sit
among all the fleeter creatures,
legs, knees and shoulders arthritic,
teeth are long and mostly gone,
heart, though quite diseased, resting
for the next quick pump, the next challenge.
I look at them all,
the female and male:
young ones, old ones, fat ones, thin ones,
ass' pert or like Montana mules,
I measure them,
gauge the distance;
only one out of a thousand
looks like it would make a good meal,
but the old beast must shop
at any store that's closest, must make do
with meat that's available,
no matter the cut and damn
the cost.

Most who pass
give me not a second thought;
they do not see the madness
in my eyes, or the hunger,
certainly not the desperation.
I've not gotten this old
by showing my cards,
only playing my hand.

A little girl decides to stop
and plop down
on the sidewalk near me;
her mother tries to yank her up
by an arm; her father looks on
seemingly helpless.
The little girl's face
is dirty, smudged with her last
snack. Her defiant blue eyes
find mine. We look at each other
locked in a fine standoff.
The girl's forefinger is stuck
so far up her nose
that barely her knuckle shows.
The mother looks at me,
and yanks harder.
She tells the father
to grab the other arm
which he does.
The little girl drags her feet
and looks over her shoulder
at me. Unfortunately,
I don't have another decade
to wait for her.
Excuse me,
a gentle voice said,
may I sit in this seat?
I swivel my head
right into the eyes
of an eighty-five year old.
By all means,
please, I reply.
I watch as she places
her three-pronged cane
into a space that allows her
to settle safely.
My mouth
waters.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2012

TAKE HEED, GENTLEMEN:

the dick
does not come
with a lifetime guarantee;
I know this
is hard,
if not impossible,
to believe
for the young
and the middle aged
when a random thought
or brushing against
the past
or the future
or the immediate
stiffened the rope
that elephants
could hang from.
It's sad
like crossing a threshold
you didn't even know existed
but you've passed;
you look behind
at the gulf
and it seems as tiny as an ant's asshole,
but it might as well be on Mars;
almost as noiseless
as the near dead,
the spigot rasps
and coughs
and dribbles
as you watch
it empty: youth,
your youth
has taken off
for greener pastures.
No longer
will you be able to
guide it in, or,
like an old sock,
soft from wear and washing,
stuff it up there knowing
it will find a resting place,
anyplace, like the corner of a drawer.
It will be
a mocking appendage
that informs you
of the time it was,
the time it is,
and why old men
are so quick
to wage war.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2012