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Category: Poetry

POEM: Escape Velocity

Published 13 August 2023 by Jason Crane

Escape Velocity

I was really into astronomy
in the way I’m into most things:
intensely for a while and then not.
You bought me a series of astronomy classes
that took place at the local science center.
I went, but I didn’t have a telescope,
or even binoculars. Honestly
I’m not sure I even went to all of them.
After the first class it became clear that
I could look, but I couldn’t go.
Somehow that made it worse.

/ / /

13 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

This is poem 23 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.

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POEM: Coltrane

Published 12 August 2023 by Jason Crane

Coltrane

For my birthday one year
you bought me a mounted poster
of John Coltrane.
It hung in our house.
Then it hung in my apartment.
Then when my new partner and I
moved to Tucson
(coincidentally where you and I met),
it hung in the spare bedroom.
I looked at it often when I started sleeping
in that bedroom.
When I left I gave it to friends.
As far as I know, they still have it.

/ / /

12 August 2023
on a train in central VA

This is poem 22 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.

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POEM: Monstrous Lizards

Published 12 August 2023 by Jason Crane

Monstrous Lizards

It is 1979, and there are two Jasons.
Both want to be paleontologists,
so they become friends.
Oh, how they love dinosaurs.
Long names, cool illustrations.
You could stand up in front of the class
and talk about a T-Rex,
even when you were a kid
who the other kids
usually didn’t listen to.
Here’s a photo of them
in the local paper,
standing against the blackboard,
pointing to a long tail and a big set of teeth.
They both have giant glasses
and unfortunate hair.
They don’t know it, but in 14 years,
everybody will love dinosaurs,
at least for a while.

/ / /

11 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

This is poem 21 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.

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POEM: Eventualities

Published 10 August 2023 by Jason Crane


Eventualities

We talked about what would happen
when one of them dies.

“All The Things You Are” is playing.

I have closed the curtains.

Anyway when one of them dies.

Is what we talked about.

By the way that song is over.

The neighbor is mowing again.

The thing is, see, when one of them dies.

I don’t know the name of this next song.

Perhaps I should have another iced tea.

There will come a day when it’s over.

We talked about this.

/ / /

10 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

This is poem 20 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.

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POEM: Fair Warning

Published 10 August 2023 by Jason Crane

Fair Warning

Eyelashes. The stoic. Fuzz. Fedora. Specs. Curls.
The massive round house belonged to a friend’s girlfriend’s parents.
I’d never met them. I barely knew her, for that matter.
The band made the weird curved windows shake
with “Abacab” and “Money” and “Subdivisions.”
Impossibly cool in this suburb of a suburb.
People were making out in the billiard room,
making out in the hot tub out back,
making out on any reasonably flat surface.
The heck with that.
Sex is fleeting, prog rock is forever.

/ / /

9 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

This is poem 19 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.

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POEM: Three For Quincy

Published 9 August 2023 by Jason Crane

Three For Quincy

first night: scared
behind my bedroom door
as you prowl the downstairs

*

those two German shepherds
came into the yard
left yelping minutes later

*

photo: me on the porch
big glasses, wind-blown hair
arm around you

/ / /

8 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

This is poem 18 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.

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haiku: 7 August 2023

Published 8 August 2023 by Jason Crane

I got into Star Trek
but he was already gone
claimed by age & the ocean

/ / /

7 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

This is poem 17 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.

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POEM: Petruchio

Published 6 August 2023 by Jason Crane

Petruchio

We were all supposed to meet back in 2019, but
it didn’t work out and then a lot of other things
didn’t work out and then the part of “we”
that was me and somebody else turned into “I,”
but then we finally met anyway (most of us)
and cooked steaks and potatoes and corn
and watched a play and it was worth the wait.

/ / /

6 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

This is poem 16 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.

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haiku: 6 August 2023

Published 6 August 2023 by Jason Crane

another normal family
on vacation / behind the boys
a sperm whale’s skeleton

/ / /

6 August 2023
Shenandoah National Park

This is poem 15 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.

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POEM: Nurture

Published 4 August 2023 by Jason Crane

Nurture

He was so small.
I threw him onto the bed, then
remembered the smack
of a fist against my jaw.
I looked at my own hands,
horrified.

/ / /

4 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

This is poem 14 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.

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POEM: In The Driveway In The Tucson Foothills There Were

Published 3 August 2023 by Jason Crane

In The Driveway In The Tucson Foothills There Were

a series of stones arranged in a semicircle

eight or so chairs, in two groups,
with white ribbon to create an aisle

eight or so people, most of whom were related
to one or the other of the celebrants,
plus Dave and Priscilla

some low cacti, which would come into play
after the ceremony when the bride
stepped out of the stone semicircle
and straight into the sharp spines

a CD boombox, probably the groom’s,
playing a Nat King Cole Trio CD,
definitely the groom’s

a justice of the peace in a dark suit,
with glasses and a mustache, who
turned out to take only cash,
causing the best man to ask the groom’s
grandfather if he had any on him,
which, thankfully, he did

two young people who barely knew
what they were doing, who could not see
that it wouldn’t last, who stood in the
semicircle of stones and hoped
that would be enough

/ / /

3 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

This is poem 13 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.

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POEM: Paramnesia

Published 3 August 2023 by Jason Crane

Paramnesia

There was a story that,
going around a corner,
the passenger door
of my uncle’s red
Mustang convertible
flew open,
and my cousin,
who was not
wearing a seat belt,
tumbled out of the car,
only to grab on
to the seat belt
he hadn’t been wearing
to stop himself
being hurled
to the pavement,
but I now think
I made this up.

/ / /

2 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

This is poem 12 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.

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