IT'S DAYS LIKE THIS

when I'm feeling most fine,
when my body hums
with glucose regularity,
obeying the speed limits
of 80-120 defying its dead
insulin producing organ,
when words dance
like a mad Nureyev
in my brain,
when a woman
is preparing me dinner
while I get my heart
up to speed,
when tragedies zip by
without stopping...
that I most want a cigarette,
a shot of dope,
a whorey woman
with a sick grandmother,
when I want some madness
to descend
on top of my head
crashing like the cymbals
on Elvin Jone's drums;
I want something,
anything,
to show me
who the hell
I am.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

INTIMACIES

I'm sick,
I said.
My girlfriend
lying next to me
said nothing.
I tried again:
Goddamn, I'm fucking sick,
I said louder.
What else is new?
she replied,
you're always sick
about something.
Two black flies,
mad with summer heat
were either fighting
or fucking
on the screen
beside the bed;
the heat circulated
by their wings
& a cheap fan.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

ALL TOO HUMAN

My ass is parked
outside Rusk,
on a bench,
cane in hand,
waiting
to begin
rehab. You see
my heart
is broken
from self-love
& other
obsessions.
But I've not given up
& so believe
I can regain
my abilities
(& desireabilty)
to hurt myself
(& others) again
one day
soon.

We're born
into this:
Addiction, Anorexia, Bulimia, Cancer,
Diddling, Drunkeness, Frigidity, and all
the other A B C's of youth, childhood rearing
and wonderment.
But this
is what awaits:
age & sickness
of indeterminate stays.

And so I watch
as life
in all its
fragility
march past
into the mouth
of medicine.
And I wonder:
do fleas
ever lose
their hardon
or Queen bees come down
with vaginal prolapse?
Are ants beset
by Alzheimers
or roadrunners arythmias?
Do lions go deaf
from roaring
or elephants
break hips from falls?
Do swans seek facelifts?

Past our prime
we all cling to failure
while little children
the world over
never notice the fissures
in the frozen lakes
and lace up their skates
anticipating an afternoon
of fun & fancy.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

RUSSIA HAS THE GOOD SENSE

to look backwards
at my poetry--
they must feel
the rawness
of my youth
when the blood-jet
was greatest.
I was young enough
not to know
what I was doing,
but did it anyway.
I figured
I'd leave
my mistakes
for other people
to find.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

MY BLOCK

used to be hot:
Dylan Thomas drank himself
into St. Vincent's;
Delmore Schwartz
dreamt himself into suicide;
Eleanor Roosevelt funneled
her tits into a D cup
& her lesbian lovers;
Melville & Twain & Poe
scraped horseshit from their boots
& ambled and rambled about America
& God & sea journeys;
Pollock & deKooning
had fist fights
over brush strokes & pussy,
while Rothko thought of black
colors & early death while Klein
the black & white firmnament.

Now...
there are bankers
& banks...& kids
who still smell of piss
& freshly minted credit cards.
You,
or your parents,
have to be rich--
7 dollar ice teas,
& 15 dollar a pound laundries
demand no less.
"Art" is no longer a subject
but a laugh.
And I
can't get
a hardon
over much,
much less
poems
like this.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

GOING HOME

is an instinct,
a drive;
it's where
the fever
started
& where
the bit
was placed
into your mouth;
it's where
your spirit
broke.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

GOD WAS STUDYING

the indestructability
of matter
when he made
the cunt;
it was as close
as He came.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018