INDEPENDENCE DAY, 2020

The pre-ejaculate of July 4th
sits sourly in America's stomach.
So many celebrations spurned;
so many festivities silenced;
so many B-B-Q's rotting meat
in the backyards of illusions.

The renegade mask
hides no Will Smiths
riding in, despite odds
or reason, to cure
& save us.

Our "We're # 1" finger
is stuck up our own ass,
cavorting with the end
products of yours
& this culture's
madness. While Tonto,
granite faced & wise,
stops riding shotgun
& moves off to a land
not yet discovered.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2020

FREE

not from the monthly
menstrual cycle
of bills bleeding
me to death--
Sicilian rent,
Cable's stick-up
without a gun,
Con Ed's
air-conditioned nightmare
of need running
through tubing of oxygen masks;
not from this cage
of skin
where microbes dance
& diseases sing
their own special tunes,
& a war of instincts rage
against an overdrawn bank account
of hormones, enzymes, & synapses.

But let me not be so personal
& selfish
on this day
of all days
when celebration
fouls the air
& sits in mouths
like embers
& ash.
Think of the heron
& the tit mouse,
majestic & trivial,
bound in a joint pursuit
chained to the freedom
of survival,
and granted
by a god
they know nothing
about.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2018

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

LET FREEDOM RING

The body ages
while time speeds:
older?/faster.
God is good--
to some of us.
Red roses
are bored.
They have
only one
destiny.
The sun
comes out
between drops.
And we?
we were so sure
of our place
in the world
yesterday--
now?
not so much.

I write
what won't
be read
except
by a special few--
the few
who are
alone & reach
for meaning;
the few
who will
hear the explosions
from inside
their fears;
the few who've
never understood
their fellow humans
but have made it
through
anyway.

Tonight
a pilgrimage
is made
by millions
to see the fireworks.
New York City puts on
quite a show
despite the warnings
from tribal hands
whose pleasures
serve ancient deities.
Not to worry, we're told,
our God is younger, hipper,
better. Who am I
to argue?

I walk slower,
but go quicker.
There's wisdom
in just that.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

JULY 3, 1995

CHAPTER V

The July 3rd sun burned through her bare windows like it was filtered through a magnifying glass. I looked at my hand expecting to see smoke rising from it. Lilith was sleeping; her mouth was open like she was expecting to catch flies.
What went on for the remainder of last evening, I couldn’t tell you with much clarity. We must have hit two or three saloons before pressing the elevator button in her building and stumbling into her pad. The last thing I do remember is her saying that this was the tail end of her period to which I responded that it didn’t mean anything to me. And then I was down there. And then I woke up thinking that my hand was on fire.
She had a wonderful shower, the water, strong and hot. It came at me from six different directions. Her bathroom contained all the fabulous and sensual odors that women, even women of much more moderate means, had, but her means bordered on the extravagant. I used notions on my hair and body that I’d never heard of before just because I’d never heard of them. By the time I stepped out of the shower--smelling like an expensive French whore--I noticed an intense smell of bacon, intermingled with coffee, coming from another part of her pad.
“Are you almost finished?” she hollered.
“Almost. With all the shit you have in here I don’t know whether to douche or not?”
I heard the sound of her laughing. “How do you like your eggs?”
“Scrambled, soft.”
The apartment filled with a string quartet by Beethoven, an early one full of youth and promise.
“I put a robe on the bed for you.”
“Thanks,” I hollered back, and went into the bedroom where a thick, deep blue, terry-cloth bathrobe lay. It was incredibly soft on my skin and, from the look and feel of it, nearly new. I felt like a bit of schmuck wearing it, but walked toward her voice nonetheless.
Lilith heard me padding in from the bedroom and turned toward me, spatula in hand. “What a night, what a night. My god, you got me absolutely crazy!” She came over and gave me a kiss, forcing my mouth open so her tongue could find mine. She stepped back to administer to the eggs.
“Sit down,” she said, “make yourself comfortable. It’ll be ready in just a sec.”
I turned to pull out a chair from a long rectangular oak table like something you’d see in a magazine devoted to French Country furniture. It was then that I saw it hanging on the wall. It was jarring. An oil painting of her face, almost seven feet by six feet, challenged the viewer to engage the beast. Well, I’ve engaged the beast more than once in my lifetime and here was another one, a live one, as fearsome looking as any and all of them ever were.
It was Gorky’s mother; it was Neptune devouring his children; it would have made the steely spine of a burglar, unaware of its presence beforehand, choose a different pad to ransack. Her face, almost the size of the canvas, in three-quarter view, was as severe as any monomaniacal persona I’d ever seen. Her deep, brown eyes were positioned so well that her concentration never wavered between what she saw, how she interpreted it, and her defiance, denying the viewer access to anything but fearsomeness within and outside her skull. Her skin, while luminescent looking, had a sickly shade of barely discernible yellow running through it. But it was her mouth, specifically her two front teeth, that gave me the most pause. Though her lips were thin and tight, it bared her teeth in perfect form except for those front two. It was almost as if the white enamel a dentist uses to bond a tooth had slipped while applying it, spreading the white film onto the next front tooth. The sloppiness which this presented was left as was, giving the impression that those two teeth were actually one very large, very strong, and very lethal weapon, or desire.
“My ex painted that,” she explained nonchalantly.
“He did, huh? Well that clears it up. I thought at first it might have been someone whose family you destroyed, perhaps eaten.”
“Yes, not very flattering, I must admit, but he is--was--a very good artist. I don’t know what he’s doing now with his new girlfriend.”
“Let’s hope it has nothing to do with small children or animals.”
“He’s a wonderful father to Hubert,” she said quickly.
“Oh, I believe he is. I was only kidding about that. It was a bad joke,” I replied, then asked, “Hubert? Who’s Hubert? I thought you had a daughter?”
“Hubert’s a she. I took the name from my father who’d recently died and gave it to her.”
“I see,” I said, but didn’t.
“I know, I know, I know, it’s kind of weird, but we all got used to it, including Hubert.”
“Well, I’m happy about that.”
“I nursed my father all during his illness, (my mother never could be there for anyone), and I just couldn’t let him go. Keeping his name alive might be the best gift I could give him.”
The bacon hissed and spat grease from the pan it was frying in. She lowered the flame, waited for a second and shut it off, putting the bacon on some toweling paper nearby. Then she poured the eggs into the same frying pan, stirring them ever so gently. She came over to me carrying a whole decanter of coffee, large cup, and some milk and placed them near me. She glanced at the painting of her.
“He really is a wonderful father,” she said again, “I really don’t know why I hung that painting. He painted so many portraits of me that are so much better; it’s a mystery why I decided to hang that one.” She turned and went back into the kitchen.
I thought for a moment, then thought better of it. “Let’s eat, baby, I’m starved. You must have depleted my entire system last night.”
“And you, me, my dear,” she said as she placed the food before me. “The bacon is from Dean & DeLuca. The butcher told me they get it from a farm in Wisconsin. It’s supposed to be the best there is.”
“Smells delicious,” I said, and took a bite. “Tastes delicious, too. Where are the eggs from?”
“D’Agostino’s.”
“Just kidding, baby, just kidding.”
We greedily ate our food, prompted as much by our bodies need for replenishment as for the taste of the food itself.
“I’ve got something you might really like for later,” she said, with just the right amount of promise in her voice.
“Oh, yeah, what might that be?”
“A bottle of Grand Marnier that’s one hundred and fifty years old. Very few are allowed to be sold in any given year.”
“I can imagine. I don’t think I’ve ever drank anything that was older than me,” I chuckled, “just to be crude, how much does something like that cost?”
“Don’t ask, just enjoy.”
I looked at her with a mixture of curiosity and dread. “Pass the butter, would ya?” I said, and turned my attention to the bread gotten, I was sure, from a Sicilian grandmother in Sicily and flown in just for our morning’s enjoyment.

...

From: THE TROUBLE WITH DREAMS
© 2015 Norman Savage

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

STAR SPANGLED BANNER UNFURLED

"Ladies & Gentlemen,
will you please rise
while we celebrate
our nation's colors.
Singing our National Anthem
are Charlie Patton, Sun House,
Robert
Johnson, Sonny Boy
Williamson, John Lee
Hooker & Elmore
James--all in, showered,
& cleaned-up from a hot day
in the fields, and members
of the Parchment Farm
Boys Choir; givem
a nice warm round
of applause.

(Those wanting to go
to the bathroom,
this
would be a good time
to do so...
And remember:
tipping,
while encouraged,
is optional)."

Batter-up.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014

MY GIRL, BETTY, & INDEPENDENCE DAY

The Betty Poems

I'm glad
that my girl
is a pain in the ass.
I'm sure
that I give her the same pain
in her ass as well.

I'm free
of nearly every
addiction
except her.
I'm a slave
who wants to stay
on this plantation
of crazy love
and I hope
I haunt
each and every breath
she takes.

Who'd want to be free
when this feels
so fuckin good?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013

ANNIVERSARIES IN BOTH MAJOR AND MINOR CHORDS

The Betty Poems

Eighteen years ago
today, I was waiting
for a plumber
to unclog
and rewire
the pumps
that kept my heart
beating. He did
a good job.
A year later,
to the day,
I was married
and she helped
to keep it beating
for almost a decade
more. She, of course,
had the harder
and more complicated
job and
she did a good one, too.
It seems like
a hundred years
before that, I was a kid
coveting Cherry Bombs,
Ashcans, and Black Cat
firecrackers to squirrel
away and explode,
devil-may-care
on our ridiculous day
of Independence.

Now, my celebrations
are daily: tying
my sneakers, brushing
my teeth, supporting
myself. But my most
celebratory act
and most important
is loving a woman
who loves me
back.
How she does it
and why
is the most scary
thing of all.
Not having to do,
but being done;
not having done,
but doing. A simpler
complexity was always
my unraveling.
Perhaps her distance
has brought me nearer?
Perhaps my years
has made me younger?
Perhaps my confusion
has made me teachable?
What I do know--
as much as we're able
to really know anything--
is that love always comes
as a surprise,
and as a gift,
and must be untied slowly,
delicately
as if a child, late at night,
was talking, whispering really,
to God
who was somewhere
inside
his own
clasped
hands.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013