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Category: My poems

POEM: noir

Published 26 November 2011 by Jason Crane

Listen to this poem using the player above.

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noir

I could write a hundred poems
about the look of your sleeping face
here where the wood stove waits
for fast-approaching winter

I’m on the floor in front of your couch
surrounded by books of poetry
kept company by the constant hum
of our modern age and the ageless
sound of your breathing

not even Sam Spade could unravel
the intricate mystery of how
we came to be here tonight
but as soon as you walked into the cafe
I knew you were trouble

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POEM: Thanksgiving Day

Published 24 November 2011 by Jason Crane

Listen to this poem using the player above.

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Thanksgiving Day

Prospect Ave rooftop
two sisters, one lover
endless blue sky
iced tea and cigarettes
next roof over pigeons
gathered for the holiday

we laugh, hold hands
feel the sun on our faces
grateful for the morning
for bagels and cream cheese
for reunited families
for the laughter of children

half my heart is missing
the other half is here

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POEM: Elwood P. Dowd

Published 20 November 2011 by Jason Crane

Listen to this poem using the player above.

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Elwood P. Dowd

these days
everyone is
beautiful

I may not
have a
rabbit

but I’m trying
to make
friends

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POEM: Cale on the 6

Published 18 November 2011 by Jason Crane

Listen to this poem using the player above.

I wrote this today on the 6 train while listening to John Cale’s album Vintage Violence.

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Cale on the 6

John Cale’s on the uptown 6
singing about Adelaide
Spring to Bleeker to Astor Place
on a November day
that finally feels like winter
there’s a guy a few seats down
who’s a ringer for Robert Pinsky
(whom I last saw in Boston
reading poems to commemorate 9/11)
five more stops and I’ll be at the temple
with the money lenders and usurers
meanwhile there are happy hands
clapping on the Cale album
and a tambourine that sounds
like a baby laughing
I feel I should tell you this
so we’ll both know

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POEM: the king’s clothes

Published 18 November 2011 by Jason Crane

Listen to this poem using the player above.

I saw Mark Turner play at Jazz Standard a few months back and wrote a poem while watching him. The poem was longer than this version and I kept trying to figure out what else to add. Finally, after being away from it for a while, I not only decided not to add anything, I decided to take things away. Here’s the result.

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the king’s clothes

corduroy-suited tenorman
plays non-clichéd blues
in clichéd suede shoes

on his furrowed brow
the image of a lotus

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POEM: for Andrea and Ken

Published 16 November 2011 by Jason Crane

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Sometimes you meet people who immediately become family.

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for Andrea and Ken

my socked feet
on your couch

noodles
with burglar’s thigh

this table
feels like home

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POEM: Rivera’s The Uprising

Published 13 November 2011 by Jason Crane

Listen to this poem using the player above.

My sister and I went to the Museum of Modern Art to see the new exhibition of murals by Diego Rivera. I wrote this poem based on one of them.

Rivera’s The Uprising

it’s her hand, not his
that stops the soldier’s blade
while with the other
she cradles her newborn child
who cries from the noise

the dead and wounded
cover the ground like fallen leaves
as a phalanx of armed men
in earthen brown
swing wooden rifle stocks
at the faces of the newly free

men in peasant caps and overalls
no weapons but their fists and hearts
stand shoulder to shoulder
under a sky red with waving flags
on ground red with spilled blood

she holds her crying child
with the hope of a new mother
and the desperation of the wall
against her back
she will not give in
she will not give in

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POEM: Tohoku

Published 7 November 2011 by Jason Crane

Listen to this poem using the player above.

Tohoku
(for TR)

there’s a woman on this bus
who looks just like you did
when we met twenty years ago

it’s hard to look at her
without losing my grip on this world
arriving back in Tohoku

where we ate soba noodles
until one of our friends threw up
trying to prove his strength

you were so beautiful
not like a painting
on the wall of a museum

forcing the viewer
to stand behind the rope
or risk damaging its brittle surface

no, you were like a field
of pale cherry blossoms
under the sun of northern Japan

inviting us all closer with a warm smile
as we orbited like honey bees
entranced and attentive

two decades later
the young woman on this bus
could almost be your daughter

for the last few hours
every time she’s smiled
I’ve been back there again

remembering that first taste of freedom
those cold winter days
in the mountains of Tohoku

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POEM: passing notes

Published 2 November 2011 by Jason Crane

Listen to this poem using the player above.

I wrote this tonight at Cornelia Street Cafe. The three lines in quotation marks are by David Budbill, from his book Moment to Moment.

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passing notes

nothing is more beautiful
than Portuguese at night
and everything sounds better
in your fickle accent

I’m drinking peppermint tea
watching you watch the band
like you’re memorizing them

I started this poem
on five separate pages
almost didn’t write it at all

but I’m listening to Judevine
the mountain sage, who wrote:
“Never be deliberately obscure.
Life is difficult enough!
Don’t add to the confusion.”

so while this may not be clear
it’s as clear as I can make it
at least without more tea, less sleep
or a longer walk to the train

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POEM: hardhat

Published 22 October 2011 by Jason Crane

Listen to this poem using the player above.

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hardhat

they’re digging up the street outside my building
putting something in or maybe taking something out
one of the workers left his hardhat on my stoop
I snuck it inside while he was at lunch
now I wear it while I write poems or update Twitter
my desk has become a construction site where I build new selves
assembling them from all the might-have-beens
putting cardboard cutouts of myself on every street corner

this one never left home / stayed in the Berkshires
this one convinced Mom and Dad to send him away
on this corner is a me who graduated from college
he’s a music teacher in a small town in Massachusetts
this one got while the getting was good
drove west with the top down and the right companion

even though it’s me who builds them
I’ve never figured out which cut of the scissors
which angle, greatened or lessened, makes the difference
allows me to split into a new being
to take on the trappings of a new life
I’m worried that my scissors are getting dull

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POEM: a cappella

Published 21 October 2011 by Jason Crane

Listen to this poem using the player above.

I went to see Amy Cervini sing at the 55 Bar in New York tonight. She was joined by many guests, including vocalist Nicky Shrire. I got the idea for this poem from their duet performance.

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a cappella
(for Nicky Shrire & Amy Cervini)

she waits at the bar
till her name is called

then sings her way to the edge
of the cliff / kept from falling

by the sound of four hands clapping
two voices wrapped like vines

a cappella — from the Italian meaning
“in the manner of the church”

surely this is prayer / sent up
through the tin ceiling

to where she imagines
her ancestors to be

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POEM: crossing Canal

Published 21 October 2011 by Jason Crane

Listen to this poem using the player above.

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crossing Canal

we crossed Canal Street like royalty
me holding a scribbled poem
you holding me, stopping the cars
the newspaper boy had a beautiful voice
like an angel crossing a highwire
when we reached the sidewalk
we kissed
and I thought:
this is why we have sidewalks

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POEM: avalanche

Published 11 October 2011 by Jason Crane

I used to post readings along with all my poems. It’s a little harder to do that with the gear I have in NYC, but given the response to my readings in this interview, I’ve decided to start doing it again. So you can listen to this poem via the player above, and read the text below.

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avalanche

it didn’t start out that way
I promise
at first there was just you
walking down 7th Avenue South
readjusting to a body in rebellion
I knew it was you from a block away
because you’d warned me
not knowing me well
so all at once we became real
and then
and then there was more
jazz clubs and cafes
apartments full of foreign adventurers
free flowers from the maitre d’
your ever-present smile
and then
and then there was even more than that
slowly
very slowly
like the first ice pellets
foretelling the avalanche
I looked up to see the wall of snow
crashing down around me
I raised my arms
let it fall

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