BOUNCED AROUND

You don't know
what you're getting
into: an icebox
or cauldron.
You don't know
how the cord
you've come from
tightens
once it's
cut.
How unfortunate
not to have skins
like the rhino
or the freedom
of a fish.
Instead,
we're at the mercy,
(for such
an ungodly time),
of lunatics
who've been mothered
by other lunatics.
They're drunk
or broke or
broken or
both; they scream
& curse
& fondle
their charges.
They abandon
or ignore
or shame
because
they can.
And those
are the lucky ones.
They haven't been
bounced against walls,
or tied to their beds
for days or weeks.
They haven't been
pissed on
or touched
or fondled
or fucked.
But none
are really
lucky.
Early on
they believe
the truth
of the lie:
their fault
for the fights
or the coldness
or the ravings
of drunks; their fault
the world tilts
& slides
& slips
underneath
them.

I never really wanted kids;
I always knew
I was too fucked-up
in all the ways
that matter
to them; consistency
for one. I'm no hero.
Today I saw a few
newly minted diabetics:
nine and fourteen.
No family,
but too much family:
drunk and addled
and miffed that a
disease demanded more attention
than they did.
The kids were quiet,
but inside, their bodies
churned: their eyes
sensitive, ears receptive
to every and any
jungle sound. They will
have to develop
a better nose
for deceit
& truth
if they are to survive. And that
could take
a lifetime.

Coming home
the train
was empty
considering
the hour; perhaps
the rain and wind
kept the animals
in their cages.
I sat alone
in a corner
and let the underground
rock me. It felt good.
I'd been through
what those kids
were going through
now: the diabetes,
the blame,
the shame,
the wanting to fix
the unfixable. They will,
I knew, waste
a lot of time.
I didn't want
to get off the train
and passed my stop.
I'd eat out tonight.
And then write,
what turned out,
to be this poem.
Not very good,
I admit,
but I really
don't give
a fuck.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015

PARANOIA IS PROJECTED AS POISON, BUT IT TASTES SO FUCKING GOOD

I got a bum left ear.
A week ago it just blew out.
Just like that:
one second stereo,
next mono.
Fuck,
I said,
what now?
I'm sixty-six
and say that
most every morning
tying my laces,
but it's mostly
bullshit.
I would like to think
I'm ready
for death;
it's these small fucking increments
that give me trouble.

Sure,
things have broken apart;
yes,
I've been cracked-up,
been inside, done time,
busted, torn-up,
dazed, stupefied,
loony, stitched
together, re-wired,
with cat's guts
and party ribbons; and, yes,
most I've brought upon
myself and some
were bestowed from the gods
and a gene pool
of mongrels.
I've concerned myself less
with tomorrow
than today's immediacies,
but the ear
spooked me.
You see,
I'm in love,
for the first time,
I believe,
with a lady
as nutty
as me
above the border
of disorder
and she's been through
some shit, too.
The last thing she wants
is an old fuck
with more shit
than she has:
A body that requires
care and a mind
thinking he
deserves it.
For growing up sick
makes the body selfish
to its own needs,
narrows the brain
to go on
alone. And even though
you want to be loved,
you know that no one
loves
the sick.

I'm a trickster;
sleight of hand sharpie;
a magician; an artist
of bullshit. I've kissed
the lips I've wanted to kiss and
have allowed many lips to kiss mine:
my fears
permitted everything:
I've downshifted Porsche'
going into a 25 m.p.h. turn
doing 50, a cigarette burning
my cheek, hands easy on the wheel
and the inside of a soft thigh;
I've put my name on thousands
of poems, novels, stupid
with arrogance and some
originality as I committed
suicide slowly
with what I thought
was style,
but I was wrong.
I was really drinking
and shooting coward's blood
in large enough quantities
to avoid forgiveness
for life's imperfections.
How I lived
is more a testament to science
and doctors
and luck
than I want
to admit.

And now you.

And now this:
little white tumors
springing up
in my brain
like lily's
in the rain,
shutting off
hearing,
fucking with vision,
and balance, and whatever reason
I have left. What follows?
sloop drooling from my mouth?
pissing in my pajamas?
speaking in tongues?
My schized mother
angry because
I'm sick
and she
gave it
to me?
My father
depositing me
in a damaged can basket,
sold for a nickel?
a dime?
whatever you can get?

It's funny
the ways I've tried
to get rid
of my life.
Obviously,
I've failed.
And I'm glad.
If successful
I really
would have failed
by never knowing
you. I'd never know
what had caused me
to be so foolish
and reckless;
I never would have known
why I went on
when everything
was telling me
to stop.
I'd never know
that my ache
was your ache;
that what I thought
were my own whispers
were yours;
that my isolation
was locked
next to yours;
that my anger
was matched
with your defiance
and a bone china
fragility.
I'd never know
how holding
another's shit
was like cradling
muddy diamonds
and how there is no
embarrassment
in love. Only love
in its mess
and imperfections
is love
at all.
This frightens you
as I know it should.
You're tired
from the responsibilities
of your own body.
Your largess
is limited
to specific places
and times. You'd rather
keep love,
this kind of love,
at arms distance.
And you will.
Even though
you know
you shouldn't.
We all lose,
finally. That can't
be helped
no matter
how well we scheme,
plot and plan,
and rationalize,
or twist ourselves
into tight little knots.

Take heart,
my love.
Enough to know
we've had a year of it.
And though I'm sure
that other's have had it too,
I'm also sure
that we've never had it
quite like this--
up 'til now.
So let your Greek Gods dance
and I'll allow my Jewish God
to sit back and grin;
once in a great while
they get things
right.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014

YOU'RE AN ITCH

The Betty Poems

I can't scratch;
a constant ache
I can't rub;
a certified check
I can't cash.
You're an ATM
full of promise
and I've forgotten
my password;
you're a money machine
that's down
or not down
but in an undisclosed
location.
You hold the keys
to the handcuffs
around my soul
but have eaten them.

It's maddening.

But I'm a funny addict:
I've shot sex
for such a long time
I can only get off
when love is mainlined
as well. And it better be
pretty much pure.
And so,
I'd rather deny myself
some half-ass high
than be strung-out
on half-ass hope--never more stupid
than when it's a finger-tip away.

I give you fair warning:
if you write
and I don't answer;
if you call
and I don't pick-up
it is not because
I don't want to;
it is not that I'm trying
to test or be hurtful--
(I can be vicious, I know)
--to you; it just means
I'm busy
hiding;
I'm licking my wounds
like any animal would;
I'm filling holes;
it means I'm playing
with another madness,
I'm reading,
I'm crying, I'm laughing
as the sirens wail;
I'm eating green
bologna, liverwurst, or a bloody
steak,
or peeling an orange; I'm trying
to make it,
just make it
for a little longer.
It means that the evidence
I vigilantly gathered
overwhelms me; it means
I'm shaking my head
in disbelief;
I'm hanging on by a spider's net,
by my own flimsy reason;
it means I'm slitting
the navel
of my dream;
it doesn't mean I love you
or not; or hate you,
or not,
but accept you
I can't
yet.
All I can do
is talk about it
to strangers
or trees,
write about it and sing
songs about it
until it's dispelled,
displaced, dissipated,
broken-down and thinned
so that it flows
between my bodies plaque
gummed-up with history.

It matters little
to me the cost--
I'd rather have had it
than not
and paid
what it's worth.
And if it's lost
it's only because
it was most precious;
it's the only thing
we usually
lose...
and that's good,
too.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013