MISE EN SCENE, BEDROOM, GREENWICH VILLAGE, 2019

Naked,
on the edge
of my bed, surfing
back & forth
between The Warriors
& Law & Order--
Curry hits a 30 footer,
McCoy offers man one,
25 to life,
Warriors up by 5,
McCoy says, "take it or leave it,"
it's 9 degrees outside,
my nipples dance to the air
that startles them from afar;
eyes sift a tabletop full of medicines:
syringes, needles, insulin, inhalers,
and Lucky Strike
next to a Coke can ashtray;
one woman after the next
elbow each other aside,
languishing, dancing, whispering
the once in a lifetime kiss
they offer and take
away as Perry Mason ends
& The Twilight Zone begins (
the realization
that my parents are dead
effects me less
than the beautiful girl
nurturning flowers
by her graveside
) and I think:
how much gray
can one man take
before he goes mad;
how much uncertainty
before each word,
each poem, laughs
at you? Not much longer,
not much more,
I think, but that
is the problem
with thinking.
Hitchcock fits
into his silhoutte
as his & my
next half hour
begins.
I hope it's
s good one.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

THE GOOD & THE BAD

Miss Susie,
as she was called,
or Susannah Mushatt Jones
her birth name as she was known,
died yesterday
at 116 years of age
in Brooklyn; the last
of those born in the eighteen hundreds
in Lowndes County, Alabama.
Goddamn!
I've got
another 50 years (at least) to go
of watching Law & Order reruns
to beat her.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016