KISSING THE FATES

I know this babe
who's in prison.
I write her
nearly every day
both for amusement
& salvation.
I've offered,
sometimes,
a key--
but that
has proved
to be
a problem:
How does one accept
a key from
your jailor?
Both of us,
it seems,
are fated
to do
the maximum.
Let us kiss
those fates
with abandon.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

OBSESSIONS

are our jailor's key:
they lock you up,
they lock you down,
and they let you out
just long enough
to crave the relief
they offer: a dance
on the head of a pin
called death.
They simplify
complications.
They ease
bordom.
They give rise
to fantasies
only fantasy
can provide.

Work, gambling,
eating, sex,
drinking, drugging,
masturbating
ourselves
endlessly
& forever
is surely
preferable
to the dull
monotonous
routine
that dog's
our days.
To be caught
is to be
liberated.
Where are they?
Who are they with?
When will I be with them?
How will I be with them?
When will they call?
Should I answer?
Will I answer?
Should I call?
How will they come back?
Will they come back?
When will they come back?
Are they fucking?
How are they fucking?
What position are they in?
How big is the cock?
the breast? the wallet?
Do they think of me?
When do they think of me?
How much to bet?
The next meal?
Draw to a straight?
Twenty minutes to three, twenty five minutes to a drink, the taste, the smell, the first sip, the going down, the settling of nerves, the feeling right, normal, OK, seventeen minutes to three...or five, or midnight, or three a.m?

Writers write and painters paint
to make vibrant the dullness of time.
The great Karl Wallanda said:
"Walking the wire is living,
the rest is waiting."

And now,
my waiting,
begins.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015