MAY DAY, MAY DAY

I'm going down
with the ship--
I ain't got no choice.
It's the only ship
I got, and the fuckin Captain
is a fuckin moron
& the fucking crew
is just as fucking nuts
as he is or
is as fucked as I am.

Please, for the love of fucking God,
tell whoever the fuck loves me
I fuckin love them back
and I haven't fuckin forgotten
about the love,
not to mention the fuckin money,
I still owe them.
But whatareyagonnado--
I'm going up
or down
in fucking flames

& I ain't got a lot of fucking time
to write
no fucking love letter.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2020

MUSING ON THE BONES

of those who went
before me
to discover what
they make of these,
our uncertain times
finds me sniffing
around on ground
more suitable for balm
than banalities.
For all I know Socrates
would more lament
not getting a handjob
than gathering in the town square
to discuss death; Bird
would worry more
about his uptown connection
than playing at a filled Onyx Club;
Al Capone & Billy the Kid
had bigger problems
than hand sanitizers;
& Shakespeare would spend days
hung-up trying to rhyme coronavirus.

Those microscopic worms of malice
do not get fat on history; neither
do they care about sin
or saintliness. They enjoy
all our fares that still has a pulse.
They even lack the judgement
of the crematoriums which belched
Jewish ash into the faces of angels;
or the Poplar trees
where black bodies blew, to & fro,
in the malignant south.

No, I must search
closer to home
to uncover the stench
circling around the bare bulb
of etiology: ma & pa.
If anyone knows
how this migrant, unwanted,
unloved, repulsive visitor
vomited itself across
our country's magical mosaic
it would be them:
"It's your fault," they would say
in unison. "Somehow, someway,
you brought it on yourself...
& deserve to suffer now...And
you can take that to the bank--
if you can find one that's open."

And that, as they say,
is that.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2020

OP EN A LL N I G H T

Trying to find sleep
has kept me awake--funny
how these things work...
or don't.
I even tried to stop looking
thinking I'd outfox him; not
a chance.
I watched night after night
the furiously blinking
of colored neon
go off kilter & dance
the dance of St. Vitus.
And other times
I watched myself
and felt gut-punched
like seeing a Hopper painting.

I've believed misery & tragedy
will find you
no matter what you do.
Still, I've barricadded myself
in here for the past month
while that lustful virus
feasted on other hosts
less susceptible than I am.
I've got all the chronic conditions
that the little bugger could hope for.
Once inside, it would make short work of me.

You can learn
about yourself
at any age.
Recently, I'd boast
to all my doctors
& my few friends,
that I'd had a good life:
many scenes, many lovers,
many poems, high highs
& low lows--enough
to expect in this go round.
I was ready.
But now I feel the wisdom
of Auden in his, Musee Des Beaux Arts.
Old men cling passionately to life,
while unexpectedly the young go...
because I don't want to go
anywhere. I have more to read
& more to write. I want
another hot fudge sundae
and the smile of a woman
who sees something
I didn't think was showing.

And so I will watch
the little crack
underneath my door
or my windows
for any sign
of invasion.
I will not go easily;
I'll try to hide
behind the door
sneak up on it,
and knock that motherfucker
out.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2020

A JUNKY EXPLAINING HIS MOTIVATION AND RATIONALE IN THE MIDST OF A PANDEMIC WITH ALL THE INTELLIGENCE HE CAN BRING TO BARE

Fuck the virus.
I gotta cop.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2020

CALLING DR. FREUD

Vell, it's obvious, no?
He is trying to replicate
his greatest success,
his only success:
The Apprentice.
All his other business'
went into the shithole, no?:
Airline, Steaks, Water,
A Charity, A University,
A Football Team, Buildings, even Casinos (where
only the most incompetent
can't make a dollar)--Poof! Gone!
Only his Daddy's money
(and that was very stinky money, too),
bailed him out until other Daddys
allowed him only to keep his name
while they made the shit.

But The Apprentice, ah, The Apprentice,
that was his. He could be his boorish,
stupid stumbling self & still rule
the little office where syncophants went
to grovel to the mushroom capped cock
underneath a desk of make believe.
It is there, in the safey
of his home, he wants people--
and now cities & states--
to slug it out.
He wants people
to beg
before he hires.
He wants bodies
to contort,
to agonize.
He wants to see
all the states
all the cities
who betrayed him
turn on each other
in a feeding frenzy
for money, for equipment,
for a breath;
he wants those cities & states
to bring those trucks,
those iceboxes,
so he can see
in real time
with his racoon eyes
the dead carted out
to wait to be planted.
He loves this;
it's what he lives for.

Today, on this Friday, March 27th, afternoon,
he's already started to primp himself--
plastic hair, orange flesh--
for his daily fix:
a "news" conference
where his mouth--
looking more like a turkey's asshole--
will emit today's droppings:
small hard pellets of shit.
He will stand above the fray
& select the reporters he deigns to favor
with more lies
knowing full well
the havoc
& death
he stokes.

All this talk,
all this handwringing,
& all this breastbeating &
all these acts of courage,
is for naught.
He is
his one & only firament light
that he navigates by;
he is the only star
in this show.
He cannot
& will not
give that up.

There is only one word
for this disease, my friends;
one word that captures
a pathology for which
there is no escape--
that word
must be
love.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2020