TAKING OFF

is always fraught
with difficulties:
getting the flight,
making the flight,
surviving the flight.
You try
to pack
smart
but usually
don't:
too much shit
gets in the way:
vanity,
memory,
and insanity
of all kinds.
God forbid
you leave
without any
of the above.

Getting into
a relationship
is somewhat like that:
when young
most can fit
easily
into the overhead bin;
the ones
with a few miles,
those frequent flyers,
will need to use
the belly
of the plane.
Their arrival will,
of course,
take longer.
You become a slave
to the carousel
and the mismanagement
of technology;
often times
there's Customs.

We all go round and round
missing, or afraid of asking,
the most obvious
questions like:
why am I so lucky
to have made it
this far? and be blessed
this much?
Usually we all are far too
enamored of ourselves
to think like that.

My advice
to all you would be travelers,
especially to those coming here
to visit me:
Pack light.
I've got more than enough shit
for everyone.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013

THE RUB-OUT

For Jimmy G.

Who knows
who did it?
or why?
All we know:
it was ordered
on high.

Maybe the gods knew
there was cancer,
or ALS, or a soft dick
at an early age
in his future
and he was so good,
so kind, so much above us,
that they wanted to spare him
the indignities?
Or maybe
he really was
a mean fuck,
a prick,
and busted-up women,
or a bastard son
who never could get
a sit-down with him
and they exacted
some kind of balance
we know
nothing of?

Maybe this,
maybe that--
who the fuck knows?
All we can know
is that it was done;
we don't know
who did it
or why.
We do know
it was done clean,
by a professional,
who did it quick
and left
no trace.
We also know
Jimmy G. will be missed,
but only for a little while,
then we'll forget
until the next big hit
is ordered.
But just think:
if a guy like him
could get whacked
out of the blue
none of us are safe.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013

AN ACCOMPLISHMENT OF SORTS

Any man can get laid
in a whorehouse
with a thousand dollar bill
in his fist,
but to get laid
in one without a dime--
man, that's sayin somethin.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013

LOVING SOMEONE ELSE

The Betty Poems

is ridiculously hard
for some people,
but not as hard
as loving yourself.
And if the other
is yourself--
just with different genitalia
--it's harder still.

But don't worry.
There's good news:
If we just get
one of those right,
we'll get the other.
And we have a lifetime
to figure it out.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013

THERE ARE SOME

who you will never see
in a crowd;
they do not belong
to a gang,
to a movement,
or to a discipline.
They have their own bones
and gnaw on them
alone. They prefer
to just get their work done.
They adhere
to no philosophy
and make things up
as they go--
sometimes
day to day,
minute to minute.

But we
count on them
to distract us
by turning out
a book, a painting,
a symphony
that defies our
somnambulant expectations
and lasts longer
than a typical meal
of Chinese food.
Some of those odd folk
produce nothing
at all,
yet still make art:
you can spot them,
if you look
closely
as they negotiate
the steps
on or off a bus;
or sweeping the dirt
from street corners,
or shaking down shelves
in supermarkets
turning each can's label
facing front.

How it happens
or why it happens
I don't know.
Like the time
I saw a 21 year old,
a babyman,
grinning from ear
to ear strung-out
in a mirror's shards
cut from the knife
of a Coney Island dealer,
but came at him anyway,
blood flying into his face
and eyes.
I wonder where
I went?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2013

KILLING TIME

I became expert at:
mangling minutes,
and strangling hours;
whole days
pissed away: beaten,
plundered, ripped apart
and torn, sheared,
stitched
together
and pulled
loose again;
drowned and spit upon
and pummeled until
they lied
bruised, broken,
and used
up.
It was thought
to be
a filling-up
of space, getting
from here
to there.
No big thing,
I thought.
I thought:
Forcing things
was useless;
mastering
was even less;
wanting
was ridiculous;
and showing yourself
worse.


Had I known
how the game worked
I would have worked
it the same. Now,
there is less
time and less
of me to kill.
And though
there are some
who might think me
the fool,
I think
how lucky I was
to have had
all those stupid days
to fuck with
and play with
and carve
with such style
and elan
that make this keyboard
sing and dance
by fingers
educated
by the blood stains
of those murdered minutes.
Nothing
is lost
to memory
and a mind
fine-tuned
by the inverted
gun.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011-2013

THE BONES OF GRATITUDE

Most men marry
the first woman
they've fucked--
hookers excepted;
those though,
when all is said
and done
were most likely
the more honest
of the two and
the hotter fuck.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2010-2013