fall asleep on a short couch
awaken
to the absence of drones
/ / /
26 April 2024
Charlottesville VA
NaPoWriMo Day 26
Jason Crane Posts
All Rise
Would everyone who served in the military please stand up? [polite applause]
Would everyone who’s had their house destroyed by the military please stand up? [silence]
Would everyone who’s lost a child to an attack by the military please stand up? [weeping]
Would everyone who couldn’t finish school because so much of our budget goes to the military please stand up? [single cough]
Would everyone who has risked their physical and emotional safety to impede the actions of the military please stand up? [murmur]
Would everyone who wishes for a world without the existence of the military please stand up?
/ / /
25 April 2024
Charlottesville VA
NaPoWriMo Day 25
starlings in my yard
the memory of you
on my lips
/ / /
24 April 2024
Charlottesville VA
NaPoWriMo Day 24
Disappointment
A three-by-three grid
with one slot unfilled,
the perfect size for a flyer.
Driving by later
to see the space still there,
the lowest bar not crossed.
/ / /
23 April 2024
Charlottesville VA
NaPoWriMo Day 23
Every
Every back turned.
Every heart stone.
Every bond broken.
Every flesh bone.
Every eye closed.
Every tongue still.
Every hand withdrawn.
Every word ill.
Every road ended.
Every smile gone.
Every door closing.
Every gate drawn.
Every thought poison.
Every grudge fed.
Every song silenced.
Every dream dead.
/ / /
22 April 2024
Charlottesville VA
NaPoWriMo Day 22
Cape Charles
I send you a video
from the edge of everything,
watching a line of cargo ships
lay siege to the horizon.
A laughing gull interrupts
the recording — he doesn’t know
it’s you I’m talking to.
Midway through, I’m startled
by the ancient queen
of a half-glimpsed realm:
an osprey atop her nest in the bay.
You prefer mountains and that’s fine,
but for me it’s horizons every time.
But I could learn to love mountains too,
as long as I get to climb with you.
/ / /
20 April 2024
Cape Charles VA
NaPoWriMo Day 20
Fuck All Y’all
Fuck billionaires and bankers
and CEOs and CFOs and
whatever the fuck a COO is.
Fuck all presidents and prime
ministers and congresspeople
and senators.
Fuck all generals and admirals
and secretaries of war
and defense contractors.
Fuck all cops and prison guards
and FBI agents and CIA agents
and all the other agents of death.
Fuck all cops again.
Fuck all landlords and agribusiness
magnates and health insurance execs
and everyone who commodifies our needs.
Fuck all cops one more time.
/ / /
19 April 2024
Charlottesville VA
NaPoWriMo Day 19
Defense
That little boy
in the shiny blue suit
couldn’t defend himself
from the much larger man,
so he built a wall inside, instead,
and sits quietly behind it,
hoping the monster
will pass.
/ / /
18 April 2024
Charlottesville VA
NaPoWriMo Day 18
Flowers
The monster toppled under its own weight,
taking many of those it had terrified with it.
As the creature decomposed, returning to soil,
crops sprang up in its place:
ripe fruits shining in the sun;
nourishing greens covering the earth.
Where once had been screams there were songs,
knitting the past to the newborn future.
This is the way of monsters and of what follows:
Fear will lose to flowers.
/ / /
17 April 2024
Charlottesville VA
NaPoWriMo Day 17
April 16, 9:30 PM
For S and H and L and H
On the radio, the Red Sox are
coming back against the Guardians.
I traveled in time today, talking to the people
of Wednesday and Thursday and Friday,
all while playing music
for the people of today.
I kissed the person I love in the morning,
hugged more people I love in the evening.
Times pass, memories fade.
The crack of the bat, the taste of chai.
/ / /
16 April 2024
Charlottesville VA
NaPoWriMo Day 16
Wake Up To Find Out
In my late 40s I became
obsessed
with the Grateful Dead.
It happened just as everything
I counted on in my life died.
Again.
I took to the road
in a decades-old minivan,
no Tennessee to get back to, Jed.
It was freezing at night in Wilmington.
The winds blew a gale in San Diego.
I walked the road where James Dean died,
a little envious of his blaze.
In Monterrey, in Anza-Borrego,
in Key West, in Acadia,
in Falmouth, in Apalachicola,
I studied the road ahead for a sign.
/ / /
15 April 2024
Charlottesville VA
NaPoWriMo Day 15
Daring
Today we widened the circle;
shared our patch of sunlight.
The gate might close on us.
Then again, we just might make it.
/ / /
14 April 2024
Charlottesville VA
NaPoWriMo Day 14
Admission
All these plants
& photos
& little figurines
are how I cope
with the truth
of your leaving.
/ / /
13 April 2024
Charlottesville VA
NaPoWriMo Day 13
My Plan To Create Mystique Through The Use Of Publicly Posted Cryptic Verse,
Or, How I Thirst-Trapped My Way To A Love Life
I’ll just keep writing poems about you
until someone asks me who they’re about.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I’ll say.
Then I’ll smile cagily and walk away.
/ / /
12 April 2024
Charlottesville VA
NaPoWriMo Day 12
Faith
You’re growing flowers for the first time.
Seeds to seedlings to holes in the ground.
It’s an act of faith, to leave them there.
To trust in growth, in earth, in rain.
To believe that in the end beauty rises.
This is a holiness worth worshipping.
This is a sacred rite to perform.
/ / /
11 April 2024
Charlottesville VA
NaPoWriMo Day 11