Parsons Marsh
homelessness comes with
no destination
/ / /
11 April 2022
Lenox MA
Category: Lenox
cold rain
dissolves into
warm chai
/ / /
7 March 2022
Lenox MA
My hiking shoes punch into the crusted snow. I’m not hiking, just walking across the landscape of what might be my next stop. The barn is empty. The education center is empty. The bathrooms are open. The lights are on in the welcome center, but the sign in the window has been flipped to CLOSED. No matter. I want to get the lay of this land and I don’t need to talk to anyone to do it. At the end of the plowed path are two hopeful solar panels, pointing up through the clouds. An act of faith. A sign tells me to watch for beavers. I don’t see any.
spiked soles
pull the ground up
through the snow
/ / /
25 January 2022
Latham NY
walking through history
thinking about renting it
sunlight floods the boards
/ / /
11 January 2022
Lenox MA
sapling
standing under a streetlight
reading Baudelaire in its glow
while a movie downloads in my pocket
the marble steps of the library
shine with recent rain
44° on the last night of the year
to my right the hotel
where my mom learned to swim
now an old folks home
to my left the old pharmacy
above which I learned
what family meant and didn’t
the last time I came home
was the first time it felt foreign
as if I’d misplaced my memories
this time they’ve come charging back
leaping from my brain
to my heart to my gut
I browse the little bookstore
walk past the boutiques that were
the homes of family friends
I imagine myself living here
making a home where
all hope had been lost
my hands are getting cold
but it’s worth it to stand here
reading poetry, soaking it all in
you’ve got to let go of Lenox
a therapist said years ago
I’ve tried, half-heartedly
after forty new homes
and a year in a van
is it wrong to wish for roots?
I’ll plant the tree myself
let the rain do the rest
till my feet feel firm on the ground
/ / /
31 December 2021
Lenox MA
Oasis
It’s such a cliché even Looney Tunes covered it:
the desperate man in the desert, crawling toward water.
In the cartoon he usually dives into the pond
to find only sand where he sought salvation.
Me, I’ll be driving a minivan to the water’s edge,
and I’m fairly certain it’s actually there. At least
as certain as we can be of anything in these times.
At some point you have to ask yourself why you move.
What possible promise could await over the horizon?
Does forty degrees of longitude matter that much?
I’ll be the judge of that, says the little voice in my head.
I don’t trust that voice any further than I could throw it,
which is no distance at all if past is any kind of prologue.
“Go east, middle-aged man” doesn’t have the same ring to it
as the other, more famous phrase, but what the hell.
YOLO and whatnot. The tank is full, the nose is pointed
toward the rising sun. I have nothing to lose but my chains.
And probably some engine parts I can’t identify.
Save me a spot on the dunes.
/ / /
Jason Crane
25 October 2020
Tucson, AZ
Eat At Joe’s
we slept in the back of our
Honda Fit across the road
from a swanky bed & breakfast
a ridge across the middle of the car
kept either of us from sleeping soundly
while birds with laser guns warred in the trees
I don’t wear underwear & I’m too overweight
to change in the car so at one point
I was naked on the gravel at Parsons Marsh
we started on the road trip with -$100
in the bank and $100 in my pocket
enough for gas, one meal at the Heritage
& then some bread, cheese & pepperoni
to eat on a blanket in the car
faces lit from time to time by passing headlights
in the morning we ate omelets at Joe’s Diner
the one from the Rockwell painting with the cop
& the kid who should have been allowed to escape
there was a signed photo of John Williams on the wall
which reminded me that I first saw Star Wars
at a drive-in not too far from here
now: a coffee shop eavesdropping on the locals
picking out the ones we want to befriend
when we finally escape PA & move here
///
Jason Crane
10 May 2019
Lenox, MA
Note: It turns out I wrote a poem with this same title back in 2012.
Leave a CommentThis is my first attempt at a rudimentary multi-track recording. I played all the instruments (diddley-bow, pandeiro, cajon) and wrote the poem. I recorded it using a Blue Snowball microphone and Audacity, neither of which is really designed for this purpose. But what the hell, I dig it and I’m learning. Enjoy!
The text of the poem is here.
Photo of the Hagyard Building in Lenox, MA, courtesy of Sally Gustavson.
Leave a CommentI Wanna Be A Regular
I wanna be / a regular / a guy who walks in and hears / the bartender say his name / who gets his root beer / before he’s sat all the way down / a guy who gossips / chews the fat with the other 3 pm hangers on / all of us gray at the temples / I wanna eat a French dip / with curly fries / that I didn’t have to order / because Becky knows / what I like // when I leave the bar / I’ll walk down the street nodding sagely / and sneer at the goddamn New Yorkers / driving their goddamn Benzes / too fast down Housatonic // I’ll stop in at The Bookstore / talk about Bernadette Mayer with the curly- / headed owner while / the tourists look at the postcards // later as the sun dips below the Berkshires / I’ll climb the creaky stairs to the second floor / sit in the kitchen where I sat / all those years before / hold my love’s hand / and feel the roots dig a little deeper / into the soil
///
Jason Crane
31 March 2019
Canandaigua, NY