SELF-IMPEACHMENT IN A WORLD STRUNG-OUT ON DANCE JIVE & HOLLYWOOD LOVE

Sunglazed & sullen,
buyoed & born from phantom
pregnancies & snake-oil salesmen,
the mules bray & snuffle
in the dark,
refusing to go up the hill
as their betters prod them
with the whip
not trusting any other inducement.
They shuffle in place
not knowing there's revolt
in each breathing thing.

Our nightmare sung
in open bars with faces slung
& slack-jawed. Hewing
toward urinals pulsating
with an ungodly stench;
words lost in a delirium
of contrivance
of easy hate
to what each suspects:
danger is differance.
Each face caught
in intellectual disgrace.
Eyes wide in the hangman's noose,
spittle sticky in word's embrace
caught before sound
at the mouth's cliff.

We would throw a rope
to our fellow travelers,
but the hemp has frayed
or has been cut
& the seas around us frozen.

Yet search we will
for land in this death
by water & what we shall see
are fires sprouting
where once were trees
which grew in spite
of man made ire.
Such was the promise
forged by compromise
though, sadly, not enough
to slake the thirst
in Bela Lugosi's eyes--
a Count Dracula whose breath & teeth
come ever closer drawing down
on our necks.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2020

MY BROTHER, THE VAMPIRE

He was good
at a lot of
things,
but he was
the best
at sucking
the blood
of anyone
he crossed paths with
until they withered
& snapped
like brittle twigs.

suck suck
sucksucksuck
and suck
some more.

Now
he has no teeth
to speak of,
& two kidneys
about to quit
on him. They
were given him
by the master
of death: dope.

Like all good vampires
he had his reasons.

He will get up
tomorrow morning
& go to a methadone mill
to drink his two hundred & twenty mgs
of madness as sick & slow & slovenly
as he is.

I gotta give him this:
if nothing else
he's a professional.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017