poet, interviewer, musician, van dweller
1986: Steve and Mike and I found
a Northern Sun catalog
& ordered anti-apartheid pins.
We wore them on the rugby shirts
that were in fashion then.
We listened to “Biko” by Peter Gabriel
& watched Cry Freedom.
It never occurred to us to wonder
why there were just two black kids
in our school.
When your house is glass
everything is a stone.
/ / /
16 May 2021
Greensboro Bend VT
It’s useful to remember that when we people like me call for the abolition of the police, our proposal is not “leave the world exactly as it is except without the police.” The idea of police abolition goes hand in hand with the idea of communities taking care of the basic needs of their people. No baby is born to a life of crime. Instead, babies are born into a world without adequate shelter, food, education, leisure time, arts, communal structures, play, and all the other things that make life worth living or even possible in terms other than mere existence. As long as we continue to allow our society to work at the whim of corporations and the wealthy and the powerful, there will always be a need for an armed force to enforce those whims. When I say “get rid of cops,” I also mean “take the money we use on cops – whether here inside our borders or via our armed forces – and use it to build a better world.” Of course we can go even further than that, past the need for states and borders at all. But imagine, for a start, if we used the money we spend on tanks and rifles and flash-bangs and bombs and drones and rubber bullets to instead house the houseless (and everyone else), feed the hungry, clothe the naked, educate all who want it, provide a basic income, get rid of the idea of landlords, allow people to have leisure time and to develop their minds, bodies and spirits as they see fit. Then we can deal with the few folks who’d be left who simply can’t or won’t be members of such a society. And we can do it without cops.
Leave a CommentThe Lord’s Prayer (Revised)
Our Father, who art in heaven,
are you there or not?
Thy kingdom has seen better days,
& if this is thy will then you’ve got
some ‘splaining to do, Lucy.
Give us a break, wouldja?
A bunch of old gray suits are trying
to steal our daily bread.
Maybe we can’t live by bread alone,
but without it we’re toast, if you’ll
forgive the pun. Also forgive us
our trespasses & our shoplifting
& our “missed” rent payments.
Lead us not into temptation, for we are
sorely tempted to string up these motherf—
excuse me, Lord, bad guys.
For thine is the kingdom & the power &
the glory & whatnot, but we might need
to take matters into our own hands for a while.
Amen.
/ / /
Jason Crane
27 March 2020
Tucson, AZ
The Covid-19 Blues
less than a buck in my bank account
not much food in the fridge
not many brains in the White House
the orange man, he don’t care a smidge
too many people still partying
too few people at home
too many rich men in Washington
passing too few bills in the dome
it’s time we looked out for each other
it’s time that we did for ourselves
it’s time that we stopped hoarding TP
and food from the grocery shelves
it’s time that we aid one another
do it the mutual way
keep going that way forever
on a move to a sunnier day
the thing that I’ve seen in this crisis
the thing that is giving me hope
is that all of our rules are just fictions
we don’t really need them to cope
we don’t have to keep paying landlords
we don’t have to scrape and to bow
we can come together as comrades
we can make a better world now
/ / /
Jason Crane
17 March 2020
Tucson, AZ
100 seconds
jumpin jack flash
gimme that frackin gas
horse shoes & hand grenades
as the men in my family used to say
nobody plays horse shoes anymore
but we still chuck them bombs
are we on foot or horseback?
sneakers laced or boots strapped?
pull me up I’m sinking
like the old cartoons with one, two,
three fingers in the air
all I can say is we gotta be there by now
with the clock at 100 seconds
& just time for one more drink
/ / /
Jason Crane
18 February 2020
State College PA
An Ode To The Retail Workplace In This,
The Year Of Our Lord Two Thousand Nineteen
Fuckety
Fuckety
Fuckety
BOOM!
/ / /
Jason Crane
26 December 2019
State College PA
not all first-person poems are factual, he told the FBI agent
I am equivocal about violence
as I sip my English Breakfast.
I’m trying it without sugar
so it’s not as if I don’t take risks.
I’m grappling with years of lukewarm pacifism
pitted against the idea of protection.
I don’t have to make hard choices;
no cops are going to kick in my door;
no ICE agents will be waiting for me
when the school bell rings.
The other day I slashed the tires
of a deserving citizen with a dashboard swastika
using a knife I mostly wield on summer sausage
or tricky packages of batteries.
Luckily the rush of righteous endorphins
drowned out the Catholic-Buddhist twinge.
“Do unto others before they do it to you.”
/ / /
Jason Crane
3 December 2019
State College PA
Walnut Spring
it’s a black gravel path
through a lovely wood
why does it remind me
of an oil spill?
could be the sound of a plane
overhead or
the distant artificial surf
of the interstate
even what we try to protect
we end up destroying
we can’t preserve an island of forest
in an ocean of asphalt
perhaps what’s needed at first
is more destruction
fewer cute wooden bridges over
barely flowing streams
more horizons lit by the fires
of burning cities
one acre of wetland can store
a million gallons of water
how many bottles is that?
///
Jason Crane
23 October 2019
State College PA