THE SURREALISTIC PILLOW ON THE COUCH

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbcMa3is-vw

Church bells in winter.
The grass bleeds.
A thick sack of fluid
begs for prophecy.
Too much rhyme
in reason.
Too much love
in a hate drenched world.
Too bad, Grace,
you and Abbie
couldn't levitate
The White House.
Does language
create dreams?

We had ducked out
for a smoke
between periods.
If we really got froggy
we might never go back
that day. We'd take
our chances our parents
not give a damn. For what
is history if not
to be counted on?
As long as we could play ball
& hit on chicks
we were never questioned.
Acid began seeping
into our lives.
Colors were better than NBC.
Peacocks strutted inside
our brains. San Francisco
became a place
of possibility. Pot
needed to be strained
& sifted.
Molecules rearranged morals.

I thought I'd never love
myself better
than how you loved me.
And I loved me
not at all.
The music coaxed me out.
I slid on the tracks
of complexity
and did what only I could do:
understand myself--
an impossible task
given my stuttering.

Simple things
I've had to learn
last; I found
a burr-like comfort...
It was like going home
& finding it
empty and could smoke
a joint in peace.

"Surrealism eventually becomes realism,"
a friend who was smarter than me said
who got it from a friend who was smarter than him.
I never argue with that kind of lineage.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016