poet, interviewer, musician, traveler
I found this one in my notebook. I wrote it back in November after witnessing this scene.
old couple in the therapist’s elevator
she says “dirty rotten elevator”
he doesn’t even sigh anymore
just presses 2
puts his head down
kneads the brim of his gray-
checked fedora with one
arthritic hand
Listen using the player above.
coconuts in a winter bus shelter
like finding snowballs on the beach in Maui
/ / /
part of a river of stones
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/ / /
first my teeth pierce the soft nori skin
then move through the rice into the rich
avocado in the center
the mug of sencha fits perfectly in my hand
and there’s just enough room at the table
for these friends who will miss me when I go
/ / /
part of a river of stones
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| From 101006_caffe_lena |
I had the distinct pleasure of having dinner with the poet Albert Glover tonight and then hearing him read at Caffe Lena. Thanks to Alan Casline for putting the event together and for inviting me to tag along. If you’re not familiar with Albert’s writing, look him up. He’s well worth the effort.
Here are the photos I took tonight of several of the poets who read, including Albert:
And here’s a video I shot of one of Albert’s poems:
I also have an audio recording of Albert’s entire set, which is going to be part of a new project I’ll be announcing soon. Stay tuned!
Leave a CommentI asked my landlord for a weed wacker / and he gave me a slingblade
No, that’s not the first line of a terrible, Billy-Bob-Thornton-inspired blues song. Read on.
For those of you who know me even slightly, you know there is one underlying philosophy that informs every aspect of my life. It is the beacon of wisdom that lights my way forward, and it is this:
I hate manual labor, especially if it occurs outside.
So when I asked my landlord to borrow a weed wacker so I could clean up our side of the block, I fully expected to be pulling a crank line and buzzing my way down the street. Instead, I had a lovely opportunity to study the life of a 19th-century farmer as I hacked and chopped my way down the street.
Before we go to the video, allow me to mention two other facts:
Let’s go to the tape:
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This Thursday, one night only: the Poets Jazz Trio at the Social Justice Center, 33 Central Ave in Albany. Poets Jason Crane (poems, sax, percussion), Dan Wilcox (sax, percussion) and Tom Corrado (bass) will perform a 20-minute set of jazz and Jason’s poetry. There will also be an open mic hosted by Dan Wilcox. The shindig starts at 7:30 p.m. Be there!
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First Night of Summer, 2010
At the Mobil station on the corner of Quail and New Scotland,
an obese man in a tank top delivers a lawnmower from the trunk
of his NASCAR-stickered beater to a young man in the latest
summer fashions. The obese man plops back into the driver’s seat,
reaches an arm through the open window to haul the door shut,
cranks up the radio, loudly injecting a surprising R&B track
into the first night of summer. Did the Indian or Pakistani or Sri Lankan
cashier in the Mobil station ever imagine himself here?
Did he play soccer or cricket as a child back home, dreaming
of the night when he’d sell Cheetos and Double Chocolate Milanos
to another obese man in dirty shorts, while R&B blared
and nervous SUV drivers stopped on the way to the suburbs?
Did any of us dream of this night? We sat on our mothers’ laps,
had our backs rubbed, dreamed of being paleontologists
or marine biologists or superheroes, not of schlepping to the gas station
to buy crap before the Red Sox game. In case you hadn’t guessed,
I’m the Second Man, one before Welles and not that many pounds off,
selling no wine before my time, plodding past the young and beautiful people
at the bars to get to the late-night sanctuary of those with no place else to go.
How the fuck did this happen? Where did the dumpster in my driveway
come from? Who put all those memories in there?
I want my mother, or at least the possibility she represented.
I want to go home, but I’m already there, and there’s a dumpster
in the driveway, and in a few days the men will come and haul it away.
Listen to this poem using the player above.
A poem for the Lark Tavern in Albany, NY, which was destroyed by fire in May 2010 and which will return.
Lark Definitions
it’s a bird noted for its singing
it’s a verb meaning to play
it can denote a certain lack of care
but that is itself a trick
a surface appearance that masks
desperate attention to detail
for we do care, each of us
we’ve stood naked under lights
that show blood red on film
we’ve bared all, opened our bone cages
to let fly the nightingales
(also noted for their singing)
we’ve confessed lovers, told
strangers truths no one else knows
all under the watchful eyes
of attentive servers who
notice yet don’t let on
a man in a bookstore asked me
how it feels to be the last
featured poet at the Lark
“I won’t be the last,” I said
Listen to this poem using the player above.
A poem for Albany-based writer and poet Moses Kash III. The first line is from a poem Moses read at Dan Wilcox’s Third Thursday Poetry Reading on May 20, 2010.
Stand up, Moses
white people have got hold of all the cash
except Americus Moses Kash the third
he remains independent of their influence
standing tall on bad knees and black sneakers
proclaiming … this word … and … this word … and …
the word, born of life lived with tall vision
he does not shirk his duty, tells it like it is
as he has seen it, felt its sting
captured its image in his lens
boxes and boxes and stacks and stacks
stacks and stacks and boxes and boxes
he still uses the word “mimeographâ€
as if time stopped in the 1960s
and maybe it did
can you prove that your heart is beating​?
Listen to this poem using the player above.
Delaware
a deer crosses Delaware Avenue
flashing a shock of white-tailed rump
at the convenience store window
Thursday morning commuters jam the brakes
jarred from their talk-radio reverie
into an encounter with the world-as-it-is
this doe stops all the moving metal
the beat of her heart more powerful
than the combustion of the bones
of dinosaurs, explosions that
carry and eradicate the memory of nature
Listen to the entire set using the player above.
UPDATE: The fine folks at Albany Poets sent me a recording of my set straight from the sound board. It’s higher quality than the recording I made and is now posted above. Enjoy!
Thank you to everyone who came out to see my set tonight at Poets Speak Loud at the Lark Tavern in Albany. I had a fantastic time and was very touched to see so many friendly faces (including the folks who would have been there anyway).
If you missed the gig, here is my set in its entirety. You can listen using the player at the top of this post, or download the mp3 file for later by clicking on Download, right below the player. The first voice you’ll hear is that of Mary Panza, the MC and one of the prime movers behind Albany Poets. Enjoy!
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I’ll be adding to this album as more photos come in. Here are the first few from the reading.
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This poster says 7:30 p.m., but it starts at 8 p.m.
I’m the featured poet tonight at Poets Speak Loud at 8 p.m. at the Lark Tavern, 453 Madison Ave. in Albany, NY. It’s an open mic, too. Sign-up starts around 7, so bring your own work along. I’ll be reading from my just-released book, Unexpected Sunlight (FootHills Publishing, 2010). Hope to see you there!
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Photo of Bernie at the 2010 Albany WordFest (Photo by Keith J. Spencer)
My son Bernie (age 7) just found out that his poem “Dance To The Chocolate” won in his age group in the Fair Trade Delmar Chocolate Poetry Contest. He gets a prize, gets to read at the award ceremony, and gets his poem printed in the paper. It’s a good month for poetry in the Crane house. Here’s his winning poem:
Dance To The Chocolate
Dance to the music right?
Wrong! Dance to the chocolate
Dance to the chocolate
Dance to the chooooooocolate
Yay!!!
Listen to this poem using the player above.
North Greenbush To Albany
Start: the Sharp house, aging Greek revival
in what was once Bloominville.
They used to bottle spring water here
until the well dried up. Then it’s three miles,
nearly all downhill, because the Hudson
draws all riders to its level.
There are two bridges – the first
across the railbed, trains carrying what few goods
we still produce and the many others
we pull in like driftwood from the sea.
These caravans of metal containers are
bound for Manhattan, lodestone of heartbeats
and rushing blood. The same lines
carry women and men to concrete hope,
to the race, to the scurry. Some will return,
lowering their sights and settling in for the long haul.
Others will half-return, riding more prestigious lines
to their magazine homes. Or so I imagine,
in the ten seconds it takes my legs
to propel the bicycle over the tracks.
The second bridge is at the base of the hill,
the bottom of the gravity well. The concrete wave
crests atop the Hudson, that once mighty barrier-highway
that is now the scenic accompaniment to stroller moms
and weekend excursionists. The river is brown on this April afternoon,
laced with the white rush of recent rains. Soon
they’ll haul the old battleship back to the dock,
so children can giggle on the blood-washed decks
where their grandfathers stood taught, gripping the rails
with terror-strengthened fingers.
The river bridge descends into the city.
The Hudson is reluctant to give up the living,
and matches every descent with a grinding climb,
testing my resolve to leave its banks. A slow, steady rhythm
carries me past Albany Lodge No. 49 and the Beirut remains
of a once majestic hotel. This is the King’s Highway.
George Washington once climbed this same hill, walked
through this city when concrete was wood, pavement
was cobblestone or dirt, before Rockefeller’s bulldozers
created this modernity, drained its character for the queen.
The general is remembered with a street and a park and a blue iron sign.
The bells are tolling the three-quarter hour as I pass the chambers
where the laws are made, and the halls of education and bureaucracy.
Then it’s home, where a distant city’s baseball team is on the radio,
and I cook my imported convenience-store noodles and sit down to write.