DOPE THAT'S BEEN STEPPED ON, AND STEPPED ON...

Let those silly romantics yearn
for days long ago
when beds held a virginal bliss
of a love yet to be unspooled
and unspoiled
by our all too human delusion
of a life in its earliest embryo
of innocence & safety.

America, too, the idea of,
has been cut, stepped on,
so many times,
you barely feel it, now,
except to feel cheated.
Once, pure, perhaps,
in the tents of chiefs
and those with lust
in their hearts
for adventure
carved trails over mountains
rock-ribbed from shore
to praire to shore
carrying banjos singing
with disbelief
and daring--
now reduced to a mathematics
naked of forests & rivers,
indulging earth's moods
whether scorched or flooded,
holding aces & eights
inside capillaries of sin,
tricked-out on Saturday nights
fucking any floppy breasted
sacrificial whore in sight.

Instead I'll choose to remember
going uptown to discover
dope so good
it was sold in fat
deuces & tray bags,
cut so honest
it bordered on religion
allowing me
to come down
from the cross
and up to sit in God's palm
amidst his opium breath
and golden spun dreams.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2020