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Category: My poems

POEM: Blackout

Published 9 March 2010 by Jason Crane

Listen to this poem using the player above.

Blackout

during the war he rode the English trains
asking strangers to wake him at his stop
they never did, and he’d find himself lost
in the blacked-out countryside
worried that the Brits would find him
and think he was a German spy
“They’d shoot ya,” he told me
holding on to the bar in the subway
and leaning against his wife
“My Ro,” he called her
they’d just been to the opera
to see Atilla, and now here he was navigating
the depths of this city, trying to
find the next connection and looking for help
to yet another stranger on a train
I grasped his hand as I led his Ro and him
to the shuttle for Grand Central
this time all the lights were on,
and no shots were fired

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POEM: Eating Godzilla

Published 4 March 2010 by Jason Crane

Listen to this poem using the player above. The music is by a friend who prefers not to be named. The laughter is by Bernie and John.

Eating Godzilla

for some reason, we started with the tail
you’d think that would be the toughest part
but after we’d sliced away the scales
the flesh was surprisingly tender
and no, it didn’t like taste like chicken
well, maybe a little
but it also had that metallic
just-out-of-the-microwave aftertaste
probably from the lingering effects of the radiation
Kazuhiro had insisted on serving side dishes
despite our obvious inability to finish
the great green lizard in one sitting
so we’d sautéed Mothra in a sesame sauce
and served him (her? it?) in lovely
sculpted bowls that fit perfectly in the hand
I’d suggested also eating Raymond Burr
just for old times’ sake
but by this time he was more fat than meat
and who can be bothered to pare all that away
just for a few grizzled bits of TV lawyer?
anyway, after the tail was finished we
cracked open Godzilla’s skull to get at
what we thought would be
the salty brain encased within
imagine our surprise, then, when
the skull turned out to contain
thousands of Pez candies
in a variety of fruity colors
Iwai-kun suggested handing them out to the children
who’d naturally gathered ’round us
for a look at the sundered source
of their nightmares
you should have seen the smiles
on their faces as he
reached his hands into the skull
and drew forth the rainbow
of sugary delights
he tossed the Pez out like Mardi Gras beads
and the kids scrummaged for them, squealing

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POEM: Tea Ceremony Hurts Yours Legs

Published 3 March 2010 by Jason Crane

Listen to this poem using the player above.

Tea Ceremony Hurts Yours Legs

at 17, I studied the ancient art of tea ceremony
with my final host-mother
and a teacher who seemed middle-aged
but may have been just slightly older than I am now
I’m not sure about the sensei,
but one thing I do know is
tea ceremony hurts your legs
the insidious thing is that you
don’t even notice it at first
you’re too focused on
placing the bowl just so
the ladle along the crook
between your thumb and index finger
the sugary snacks on a piece
of pristine rice paper
floating above the tatami floor
after a while, it feels like
you yourself are suspended
above the floor, just slightly
is this enlightenment?
did I, at 17, achieve satori?
wait till my parents hear about this!
and it’s then, as you leap up
to spread the word
that you realize your mistake
and pitch face-down onto the mat
spilling your carefully whipped green foam
and crushing the delicate wooden ladle

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POEM: Where In The World Is Weldon Kees?

Published 2 March 2010 by Jason Crane

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On July 19, 1955, poet Weldon Kees’ car was found on the Golden Gate Bridge with the keys still in the ignition. Shortly before, he’d told a friend that he wanted to move to Mexico to start a new life.

Where In The World Is Weldon Kees?

“It is still not known whether he killed himself or went to Mexico.”
— from a Poetry Foundation podcast about Kees

Or maybe both
perhaps all suicides go to Mexico
sit invisibly in the zocalo
and listen to the mariachi band
if unbaptized babies
are shunted off to limbo
and a beef jerky
can get you purgatory
why couldn’t a leap from the Golden Gate
land you in Guadalajara?

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POEM: Aomori

Published 1 March 2010 by Jason Crane

Listen to this poem using the player above.

Aomori

standing on the cliffs of Aomori
is like standing at the end of the world
one more step and you can take
a refreshing swim in the bay
if you survive the drop, that is
squint your eyes and it feels like flying
pine trees level with the top of your head
and the waves continuing their
thousand-year attack on the rocks below
I kept better notes than this
but they were lost in a flood
nothing so grand as the sea
winning that final victory
it was just that our washing machine
overflowed and submerged the basement
who would have thought
after a thousand years
it would be a load of laundry
that would finally conquer
the cliffs of Aomori?

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POEM: Tsurumigawa

Published 27 February 2010 by Jason Crane

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Tsurumigawa photo by Ivan Kurniawan
Tsurumigawa photo by Ivan Kurniawan

Tsurumigawa

ironically, we lived along the See Crane River
it sliced through the rice fields
that were just steps from the busy road

Tokyo and Yokohama and Kawasaki
are joined like an urban Cerberus
between them, hidden bits of unexpected farmland

bent old women in worn rubber boots
knotted bandanas around their heads
slop through the wet paddies

reaching crumpled fingers into waving rice
and plucking out the o-kome
the flesh of their people

in Ichigao, our town,
the women could have walked
a mile along the river

and treated themselves
to McDonald’s french fries
or the Colonel’s secret recipe

of herbs and spices
a bloodless invasion
leaving no cloud in its wake

I don’t think we ever actually
saw a crane on the river
that bore the bird’s name

like Oak Glen or Forest Heights
the name is simply a reminder
of what’s been taken away

gold flecks in green tea
gold plastic across the street
from the train station

and the Colonel standing there
arms outstretched, smiling
beckoning the cranes to fly to him

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POEM: Enclosures

Published 26 February 2010 by Jason Crane

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Enclosures

huddled under the umbrella
nestled in the sleeping bag
crouched beneath the spreading elm
encased behind the windshield

while the rain pounds
the hailstones plummet
the wind circles ’round
looking for a crack in the siding

it’s not an aversion to the elements
it’s the thrill of being protected
the joy at not being forced
into anything you don’t desire

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POEM: Gerry & Lenny

Published 25 February 2010 by Jason Crane

Listen to the poem by pressing the play button above.

Gerry & Lenny

have the same vocal tic
an explosion of air from the nose
with the tongue in the back of the throat

each time it sounds like laughter,
a commentary on their own speech
then back or not back to the matter at hand

“I’m waiting for a Jew to turn Catholic!
Can you imagine a Jew submitting
to the goddamned pope? Jesus Christ!”

Like Lenny, Gerry stops in the middle —
in mitn drinen, they would say —
to tell stories and to follow tangents

Like Gerry, Lenny draws water from
a desert oasis and pours that water
into molds of his own design

“The Catholic Church has given the pope
permission to become a nun.
Just on Fridays, though.”

Gerry was born in Pittsburgh:
grew up with bituminous in his mouth,
ate the ash-gray snow

Lenny was born in Mineola:
within weeks, Sally was back on stage
and Lenny drifted from house to house

Gerry has been a poet laureate
and has won awards and prizes
and taught at prestigious universities

Lenny died on the bathroom floor,
syringe near his arm,
camera lens in his face

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POEM: Miso Soup

Published 24 February 2010 by Jason Crane

Listen to this poem by pressing the play button above.

Miso Soup
(for Jennifer)

the only thing better than the taste of the sushi
is the lingering aftertaste
mixed with miso shiru and warm ocha
a sensation so rich
it’s almost another meal in itself
I always order one extra piece of unagi
and remember walking into Meiji Jingu
holding your hand
you gave me a book on Zen —
I was into that then —
and I gave you an atlas of our world
so we could choose the next destination
we sat in the kaitenzushi-ya in Shibuya
and watched the endless parade
of plates, daring us
in Nikko, we took a photo in an unexpected
tram car that was right there on the sidewalk
then climbed up all those stairs
to see the sanzaru
there were many little tremors and
the one big one
that had us scurrying for the doorjamb
just as the shaking stopped
and yes, there were cherry blossoms —
there always are —
right outside our bedroom window
and the cleaning man came by each week
and always seemed surprised to see us
we gave him our maple tree
(and you gave me its cousin years later)
I savor these moments and roll them around
on my tongue, heavy with the dusky taste
of shoyu and the tang of vinegar in the rice

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POEM: Some Poems Have Titles That Are…

Published 23 February 2010 by Jason Crane

Listen to this poem by pressing the play button above.

Unknown man with small fish.

Some Poems Have Titles That Are Witty, Creative, Unexpected And Just Generally Better Than The Poems That Follow Them

This is one of those poems.

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POEM: Hero

Published 22 February 2010 by Jason Crane

Listen to this poem by pressing the play button above.

Hero

he pulled the sword from the stone
and it turned to ash(e)
he swung ’round to stare at the sun
in defiance of the natural law
the point of the needle
the twin spiral stairway
the walls fell and the enemy surged through
years before, he’d been stopped by white
unable to pass through the veil
while others’ backs were turned
and now, the final indignity
he swung ’round to stare at the sun
it burned away his memory
he pulled the sword from the stone
and it turned to ash(e)

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POEM: I am not an Indian

Published 18 February 2010 by Jason Crane

Listen to this poem by pressing the play button above.

A Blackfoot woman
A Blackfoot woman

I am not an Indian

My great-great-great-great grandmother
was a full-blooded Blackfoot Indian.
People say full-blooded not because
they have any proof,
but because it sounds wild, native.
If you do the math, that makes me
1.5% Blackfoot, and not very wild at all.
Say what you will about Ward Churchill;
he was right that all our accomplishments
as a country, all our technology, all our freedom,
all our music and poetry and art and dance and theater,
is being created on land that we stole from people
whose names we don’t even remember.
In college, my roommate’s best friend
paid less for his tuition because he was
above some arbitrary threshold
of Native American ancestry.
Not full-blooded, but bloody enough.
He was generously allowed
to learn quote-history-unquote
in a government building on the very land
his ancestors occupied before they became
little more than discount coupons for the state.
Another branch of my family has lived
in New England since 1638.
We never owned slaves, you’ll hear them
attest proudly, and it appears to be true.
Less lauded is my some-number-of-greats
uncle John Flanders, who served
with distinction in the army of Gen. John Sullivan,
helping to rid upstate New York of the Iroquois.
Sullivan’s troops burned and shot and hung and scattered
the people of many nations, including the Cayuga.
The army destroyed their town of Coreorgonel, and in its place was
established Ithaca, now a haven for higher education and
an oasis for studiers of organic farming and
Native American spirituality.
Living at Coreorgonel were the remnants of the Tutelo people,
who’d been forced from their homes
on the border of West Virginia and Kentucky,
and who were taken in by the Cayugas. It has been
112 years since any human being spoke the Tutelo language.
Sitting on a stage at the Tokyo Film Festival, director Chris Eyre
(of the Cheyenne-Arapaho, remember them?)
was asked by a member of the audience whether he preferred
to be called “Indian” or “Native American.”
“We have so many other problems to deal with
that we don’t have much time to worry about
what we’re called,” he said.

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POEM: Entrances & Exits

Published 17 February 2010 by Jason Crane

Listen to this poem by pressing the play button above.

Entrances & Exits

Jason Lee Borders entered the world
on a late-summer afternoon in 1973,
sharing his father’s middle and last names
and containing a small flaw in his DNA
that he also shared with his father,
who, unlike Jason Lee Borders,
wasn’t strong enough to resist the genetic revolver.
Instead, he held it to his temple and pulled the trigger,
and a wash of alcohol broke through the levy
and swept the borders away.
Before the little boy drowned,
his mother crept through the window
and ran with him into the night,
gene still intact, waiting.

Jason Lee Gustavson entered the world
in a courtroom in 1979
after the requisite paperwork had been filed;
a new identity, a new life,
another in a long string
of relocations and reorientations.
By this time, even at his tender age,
he’d made one of the few choices
to which he’d remain true,
deciding early on
to leave his father’s revolver tucked in its padded box
in an unlocked drawer of the old oak dresser.
As it turned out, though,
his father wasn’t the only parent with a gift,
and generations of overflowing bathtubs
in the brains of his maternal ancestors
were slowly leaking through his own skull,
surrounding his spongy gray being
with a dark fluid that obscured light and memory.

Jason David Crane entered the world
at a kitchen table with his grandparents
in 1994 after a late-night session of salsa music.
They’d gone through all the family names
when his grandfather suggested the family
for whom an aunt had washed the laundry.
As a gesture to the father
whose name he was leaving behind,
Lee became David
and he became a man.

Jason-Lee-David-Borders-Gustavson-Crane
entered the world and left the world and
entered the world and left the world and
entered the world. His bathtub overflowed
and he sank beneath the water,
one hand clutching the smooth porcelain side.

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POEM: on Tuesday, all as one

Published 16 February 2010 by Jason Crane

Listen to this poem by pressing the play button above.

This was an idea I had for a short story, but I decided to try it as a poem.

on Tuesday, all as one

on Tuesday, all as one,
every creature on earth
experienced a moment
of pure happiness

not the exhilaration
of acquisition
nor the momentary joy
of orgasm,

but a feeling that all
was in its place
and the way ahead
was clear

no babies cried,
no dogs howled,
and the sleepers sighed
and unclenched their fists

a smile stole
across the face of a boy
sitting beside
a baobab tree,

and two lovers
turned toward one another,
their quarrel
forgotten

babies born
at that instant
entered the world
quietly,

their mothers and fathers
exhumed
from beneath mortgage payments
and piles of bills

as the clinical beeps turned
to a tone
and she released
his thin hand,

a daughter saw
her father’s brow
un-knit and watched the pain
pass away

shafts of sunlight
fell
across the needed places
of the world

and on the other side
a starry night greeted
watchmen, nurses
and late-shift taxi drivers

voices lowered,
index fingers relaxed,
jaw muscles loosened
shoulders dropped

in the coffee shop
on the corner
near the library,
everyone was laughing

and the child hiding
in the boys bathroom
stepped out
into the school hallway

true, the moment passed,
but forever after,
strangers passing in the street
caught one another’s eye

and some would grin
and some would smile
and some would simply look,
knowing

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