EVERY NIGHT IS DOPE NIGHT

Edgar waits
pen in hand
for his little girls
to visit
bringing
China White.
He sits
next to
a raven colored
sax player
who's trying
not to vomit.

He scribbles
between the cramps.
They hope
they trickle in
before the second set.
Everything's green
in this bucket
of blood
saloon.

Outside
it's snowing.
A white carpet
lays between
uptown &
downtown
on the south side
of heaven,
one stop
from Hell.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

MOTHS & FLAMES

http://bit.ly/1NZ3eMZ

My in-box
is a tinderbox
of maybes.
And I come
from a long line
of seekers:
Catullus & Shelley
& Byron & all those
rowboat suicides
have made my pebbled path
no easier to traverse,
but fun to follow.

Words have lit
the back alleys
of madness
& another has
found me
behind those
choreographed characters
at my age
now.

In this heat
we look toward
Christmas.
I'll begin
to prepare
my lair
now...

Jingle Bells.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

RUSSIAN PRELUDES & NOCTURNES

I found our grandeur
in a Karaoke bar
on the lower east side:
Putin was singing
Pussy Riot--
quite good actually
--while Trump
was taking a shave.
Wait til I finish,
Vladimir said,
then slit it.
(He was always
a cold
sonofabitch).

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

RUSSIANS

have guts:
they know
they're fucked
but they stay
Russian.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

FOR THE GODS' SAKE

stay a mystery.

Let me do
with you
what I want.

Keep
your secrets
& keep
your stains.

Keep
whatever is old
new, unknowable.

Once you tell me,
even in the bluest whispers,
it's twisted
by the very air
pushing against
our skin.
Instead,
I will watch
that which moves
without thought
or motive;
I will know you
by your absence.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

THE DANGER ZONE

http://bit.ly/2a5CTRk

His blues still shouts blind
in this darkness we're in.
It's a piss-poor choice
to choose from and gleefully
lick our hands anyway.
Mussolini on the balcony
tossing bouquets of bombast
while the Wicked Witch tries
to sniff out infidelities
and infidels. Who could
blame her
for feeling entitled
after living with God's gift
to neurosis?
She can still hear
his honeyed voice
full of Hope
& bullshit say:
"Had a hard day,
need to shower."
And still she could smell
sex all over him.

Mussolini had Fred
& Roy Cohen to get him hard
& now he keeps his daughter
closer than his wife.
Something's up
with that
is something
he might say.
I'll just lie down
on the nearest couch
& wile away my days
waiting for the world
to whimper & sputter
& spill from the sounds
& the furies of
nothing.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

ISLAND HOPPING

I've sweated
& absorbed
hundreds of cultures
while your blood
courses with thousands.
My island
is steel.
Your land
is sunshine.
We shake
from the glint
of refraction.
The coronets
are filled
with blood;
the games
are yet
to begin.
Nature & man
are majestic
& depraved.
Mad desire
moves all.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

MELANIA

loves me
she said,
but can't fuck
with her prenup.
That's OK
with me:
married women
are safer
married
(not to mention
richer).

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

TO MAURITIUS...WITH LOVE

The blues
will tell
you...rock
'n roll
rockers
& punks
& hip
hop
artists,
the mad
painters
and soon
to be mad
civilians;
they will
shout,
scream
stomp
& stroll
down the
avenues
of the
dead;
Madagascar
will moan
& Arkansas
will sway
to the harps wind;
glass will hide
underneath a dream
of white while horses
run away
over the hills;
a deep bone ache
abides like a good
slide guitar
in a whiskey walk...
There is no better love
than the one that's
lost and
you can appear
like magic;
I've made it easy
for you:
I'm listed.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

FUCK AN APPLE

I'd tell my students,
bring me some pot instead;
they were almost adults
& so better able
to handle
the truth.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

NOTHING MUCH HAS CHANGED...

except the gray hairs
around my balls &
the wrinkled spigot
that serves
as my dick.
But my brain
still gets as hard
as Chinese algebra.
And so I'm taken
by surprise
when folks my age
smile & say hello
as they pass me
reading or smoking
a cigarette or both
while I sit
on a stoop
in the shade
on a beautiful brownstone perch
in Greenwich Village.

The young ones
without a crease
or a care pass
as if I didn't exist...
& I don't...
for them.
Sometimes a "father thing"
glides by and I get a look
but little more.
But the old ones & I
exchange a smile, even banter
a bit--how's the book; it's hot;
nice weather; live here long--
small talk that connects us.
They think they have nothing to fear
and I don't try to dissuade them.
They are not in a rush,
but I am...I've always been
in a rush and more times
than not
have blown past the money.
Most feel no danger
coming off of me...I hope
they're wrong.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

MY FRIEND FROM MAURITIUS

is nameless,
faceless,
formless.
Just the way
I like em.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

DANCING WITH REPTILES

Some folks
I work with
can't take
too much
freedom; they chafe
& strain
at the bit
of choices:
what to eat?
what to watch?
where to go?, etc., etc.
How to make time
move is sometimes
a bitch; the streets
& institutions
will do that ta ya.
Easier to make death
stand still
& pay attention
to you
if you're helping
to make his job
easier. A heated grating
is home for a night,
a week,
a year; a garbage can
in The Port Authority
offers food, maybe
a cigarette
butt a few drags, a drug
relief. Survival
is one decision
at a time.

Belly-up...

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

BORN WHITE

I was crazy
but never worried
about being stopped
or frisked or shot
dead by the boys
in blue when nuzzling
a girl at two or three
in the morning
or pretending
I was tough
with a Coney Island crew.
Even when
I was carrying
reefer or dope
on a black block
I was more afraid
of being ripped-off
then shot by a white cop, who,
was more afraid than I was.
I had ownership
of the country
& the world.
To me
it was a bad break
to be born black;
it allowed me
to steal
their music,
their colors,
their magic and
their pain. I took
what served me
with both hands
& gave them
lip service
or silence.
I did with them
only what I wanted,
which amounted to
a spectator sport.

Nakedness needs
to be bled; the cut
needs prayer.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

THE FULLER THE LIPS

http://bit.ly/29rfvM1

the more traps they set
or fall into; yours
is as ripe as a Georgia peach
in the fat heat of August.
My face still drips
with your juice; my hands
sticky as an ice cream cone
in the hands of a child
who does not know that time
exists.
God, like me
& your father,
is a fiendish
romantic, a comedic genius
falling all over ourselves
to get next to a chilly woman
who heats her burner
with a Memphis beat.

I don't mind your lying
as long as you're telling me your truth;
I don't mind the wind teaching a song
how to sing; I don't mind the distance
as long as you keep me near.
I open your secrets
with a carelessness
born of fever &
forgetfulness.

I touch all your places
that I remember. And
don't mind inventing
more lies
to fatten
in the sun.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

4th OF JULY, 2016 POSTMORTUM

I heard the rain fucking
with Macy's fireworks
on Manhattan's east side
last night, as my air-conditioner
whirred and whined. I had shut
the windows tight & locked the door,
but something is always trying
to get in to your safety
no matter how guarded you are.
That something is working
towards you without fear
or distractions.

I didn't feel bad
for those millions
standing asshole to elbow
waiting for the celebration
of a country that has lost
its way. Crowds
have always terrified me.

So much of the city
had abandoned me
and what was left
scanned the heavens.
The rain's rhythm
soothed me.
Then it was over:
loud booms to my east
lasting twenty minutes
or so. A few
lightening flashes.
A few o's & ah's & oh's
and then it was over.

I made it thru
another holiday,
another reason
to celebrate
an illusion.
I have plenty
left & tomorrow
is another day.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

IF I GOT YOU

so wrong,
why
are you
right
here?

A mistake
of nature?
Hardly,
my dear;
rather
a melding
of illness'.
Call it
Mother
Nature
limiting
the destruction.

I kinda like that.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

A PROPITIOUS DAY

Blood moons
& high tides.

Gun shots
tomorrow.

Heart attacks
& marriage
21 & 22 years ago
respectively.

Today,
a Jewish gypsy
told my fortune
and made me feel guilty
about my future.

In celebration
I made out
this month's
checks:
I want to know
exactly
how free
I am.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

SOMEBODY FROM MAURITIUS

rang my bell
in the middle of the night
a hundred & twenty-one times,
but I was sleeping--
didn't hear a fucking thing
'til this morning,
when I saw someone
went fucking crazy
on my poetry blog.
I didn't know
where Mauritius is
until I Googled it:
Africa, fucking Africa,
very beautiful.
Who is it?
Male or female?
Female, I hope.
So much interest
should not go
unrewarded...
& had to stop
myself: Savage,
I said, take it
easy; you're a good writer,
but a fucking dreadful human.
It was then
I picked-up
this pen...
& there
you have it.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

RESISTANCE

I've been trying
to write a poem
about the love
of my life
for days now.
The page,
my fingers,
my brain,
says: FUCK YOU.

(Hey,
that works;
that's
the poem...

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016