OLD AGE

is treacherous--
I could get a hernia
merely by lifting
my eyelids.

And lowering them
is no picnic either.

Norman Savage
Greewich Village, 2019

ON A NYC STOOP ON THIS DAY OF ATONEMENT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csE28cJxxNE
For Samira

Had we met
forty years ago
we'd have had
a grand time
setting each other
on fire.
It would have been lovely
to be both ignitor
& charred; pyromaniacs
of the soul; LaVern Baker's
Angel Heart.

Your eyes belied
the lust your body struggles
to contain. Brown & burning
they see too much & try
to offer so little, but
they fail to protect
or to serve you well.

We're trapped
in our own time
& by our own sense
of morality
while cowboys ride
faraway fences
& Aretha Franklin
moans in the dark.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

PEEPING

the peeper
who peeps
the peeper
who peeps.

Fear not,
my love.
If I do not love
you, I do not love
at all and when
you stop
for a minute
or stop
at your grave
I will not
be loved
again.

Can you see me
getting dressed?
I'm going out
this midnight.
In this cold
February
of grief.
There is a ball
for exhibitionists.
My fingers
are all
I need
to warm
me--
though
your eyes
are essential
for this dance
to be danced, too.
Observe me
observing you
in your private
hell of dancing
lies, dancing
that delicious
Fascist rag.

Its perversion
is its passion.
Nothing more
than being
scared
shitless--
the beginning
of lust.

And isn't that
beautiful, too?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015