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Jason Crane Posts

POEM: Long Distance

Published 29 August 2023 by Jason Crane

Long Distance

I came home from Japan a month early.
A grand surprise.
James picked me up at the airport.
We drove through town.
He pointed out the new post office,
the new Wegmans.
He took me to your house
before he took me home.
Your mom answered the door,
called you down from your room.
As soon as I saw your face,
I knew it was over.

/ / /

29 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

This is poem 39 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: 28 August 2023

Published 28 August 2023 by Jason Crane

awaiting the summer rain:
a stick shaped
like a bird’s foot

/ / /

28 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

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POEM: Chance Encounter

Published 28 August 2023 by Jason Crane

Chance Encounter

I met him in the park
where you asked me
to marry you.

I was in a camping chair
behind my van,
reading.

He was passing by
on one of the park’s
walking paths.

The rear door of my van
(the van I moved into
after you met someone else)

was open,
and the bed and stove
caught his eye as he passed.

He stopped to talk,
asking about my travels,
what I had seen

and where I had slept
and how I kept alive;
everyone’s questions.

We exchanged numbers
for some reason,
and I stopped going

to that park,
the park where you asked me
to marry you,

before you met someone else.

/ / /

28 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

This is poem 38 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: Ancestry

Published 28 August 2023 by Jason Crane

Ancestry

To go down into the mine
again and again,
searching for one more seam,
one more rich vein.

To walk the dark tunnels
deeper and deeper,
until daylight fades behind
like a rumor.

To hear the trickling water
drip and drip,
making the way treacherous,
slick, unforgiving.

To chip away at the walls,
harder and harder,
until the dust
defies breathing.

To return to the surface,
levels and levels,
clutching a meager find,
holding it up to the light.

/ / /

27 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

This is poem 37 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: Mr. W

Published 26 August 2023 by Jason Crane

Mr. W

We all piled out of the plane at Narita,
taking our first steps into the mystery.
A few spoke some Japanese;
most, like me, not a word.
Then suddenly he was there,
quick and powerful and suave,
a smile permanently lurking
just behind his eyes.
He showed us how to use a payphone
so we could tell our parents we’d lived.
“Last call for a month,” he reminded us.
Then it was buses, if memory serves.
Taneen would remember.
Anyway, it was a long trip north
to a hotel in Sendai, where
the next morning a series
of curious families would try
to identify us from the one photo
they’d each been sent.
Halting conversations,
mispronounced names,
then helping us into cars
or onto trains with our suitcases
and our wide-eyed stares.
Mr. W watched over it all,
nodding at the right places,
stepping in to translate,
making sure each of us felt cared for.
Later he’d party with us
and dance and sing songs
and watch us eat soba
till a couple of us puked.
We were all thousands of miles
from our fathers, but he made it feel
like no distance at all.

/ / /

26 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

For Wakabayashi-san, who passed away recently and who was the guardian and guide to so many Rotary exchange students in northern Japan. Arigatou gozaimashita.

This is poem 36 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: After Jack

Published 25 August 2023 by Jason Crane

After Jack

You start with the legs crossed
or kneeling or sitting in a chair
with your hands just so or no
particular way at all.
The breath comes slow, deep
or else it doesn’t: who’s to say?
In the brain an alto sax plays
and then Pedro strikes a guy out
and then there was that one time
you told someone how you felt
and it didn’t go well
and then something is scuttling
through the leaves outside
and then you think of calling her
or think of writing to them
and then dinner tonight,
maybe try the Indian place?
Oh that’s right
you’re supposed to be breathing.
I mean you ARE breathing
otherwise there’d be a whole new
set of problems but you’re not
paying attention and really
attention is where it’s at,
where it’s all it’s at, as
Lenny stumbled that one time
after he’d taken up lecturing
rather than bits.
Breathing, right, you won’t forget
again
but you will probably because
today the zoo is full of little imps
and they love jumping
on the Samsonite of your memories
and then there was the time
you took the dog back
because it bit a kid in the neighborhood,
busted right through the door
and chased the kids around and got one
and then you think of the way
they asked if you ever expected to be
with someone like them
and how that question has never quite
sat right, you know? and yet
you did expect it
but now it’s over and it always
comes back to that in the end doesn’t it
the overness of it all and then
you remember to breathe.

/ / /

25 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

This is poem 35 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: But I Am Your Child

Published 24 August 2023 by Jason Crane

But I Am Your Child

My father never looked for me.
In more than 30 years he never wrote,
never called, never
showed up outside my school
or at my job,
never spotted me through a fence
playing with my sons at the park.

It’s been four years and my parents
are clearly content
to let this silence stretch
into permanence,
to hold on to the other child
and pretend she was the first
and only.

/ / /

24 August 3023
Charlottesville VA

This is poem 34 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: A Journey Of 1,000 Miles

Published 23 August 2023 by Jason Crane

A Journey Of 1,000 Miles

My first guest was a nun.
I hadn’t talked to one
since the second grade.
It was for a 5-minute feature
on people doing good work
in Rochester, New York.
I was in a studio, she
was on the phone.
As soon it was over,
I pressed a button
and erased the whole thing.
I broke out in a sweat.
Took a few deep breaths.
Then I called her back
and asked if she’d do it again.
Sure, she said, I think
I can do it better anyway.

/ / /

23 August 2023
Charlottesville NY

This is poem 33 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: Chasing Answers To Questions Unknown

Published 23 August 2023 by Jason Crane

Chasing Answers To Questions Unknown

From the moment Father Edgar walked into the room,
I knew I wanted to be a monk.

When we changed teams, moving across the street
to the Methodists, I decided to become a minister instead.

At 15, newly into prog rock and Depeche Mode,
I discovered it was possible to not believe in God.

I flew 10,000 miles to clap hands and bow,
to ring bells and make mochi and stare up at statues.

For Christmas in 1997, Jen bought me a book
about the Lotus Sutra. It was over my head.

Three years later I was in our spare room, incense
burning on the credenza, legs folded, hands in a mudra.

Over the next two decades I went back to the cushion
time after time, trying to quiet the monkeys.

Eventually I threw in the towel, but somebody threw it back.
After all, a frood has to know where their towel is.

/ / /

22 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

Thanks to S for the title.

This is poem 32 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: I Thought I Recognized Your Foul Stench

Published 22 August 2023 by Jason Crane

I Thought I Recognized Your Foul Stench

Chris was Leia.
Wade and Jeff were stormtroopers.
Kevin played keys.
I was Vader.

There was balsa wood involved.
And free weights.
A cardboard Death Star.
And Depeche Mode’s “Just Can’t Get Enough.”

If none of this makes sense, what can I say?
We were nerds, it was the 80s.
It was either Odyssey of the Mind
or learn to throw a ball.

/ / /

21 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

This is poem 31 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: Contingency

Published 21 August 2023 by Jason Crane

Contingency

I had a plan.
For if it happened again.
A late-night,
tiptoe-to-the-kitchen,
find-the-right-drawer,
then-back-upstairs plan.
I came up with it as a kid,
never expecting to need it
as a middle-aged man.
But there I was in the kitchen
with his rage-trembling body.
I went for the drawer
but she stepped between us
so I ran for the car
and drove away.

/ / /

20 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

This is poem 30 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: These Are A Few

Published 20 August 2023 by Jason Crane

These Are A Few

Our toothbrushes, side by side.
Waking up next to you.
Eating tuna rice.
New Jersey.
Watching Bake Off
or Tony Bourdain
or Chef’s Table on the couch.
Driving for hours, singing along to our playlist.
Running errands around town.
Using little nicknames
for one another.
Falling asleep together.

/ / /

20 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

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Morning Haiku: 20 August 2023

Published 20 August 2023 by Jason Crane

Morning Haiku

Jack’s cat,
gone—
then back!

standoff—
spider on the wall
above my bed

tinkling bells:
dog walkers
pass my bedroom window

bedroom clothesline—
morning breeze
dries my shirts

/ / /

20 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

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POEM: Officer Unfriendly

Published 20 August 2023 by Jason Crane

Officer Unfriendly

I would grab a bullhorn and taunt the cops.
I’d make fun of them right to their faces,
from a few feet away, to make the workers laugh.
Picket lines are long and hard and too cold or too hot.
Morale is kept up by humor as much as righteousness.
I shouted insults at the cops, whose faux unions
are always on the side of the oppressor, who stand
in their own picket lines, firmly opposed to justice.
I used my whiteness, my maleness, as a shield,
provoking and absorbing and deflecting their anger
from the workers who didn’t look like me,
who couldn’t afford any trouble,
but who were marching anyway because
they knew that enough was enough.
I didn’t teach my kids to ask cops for help.
I told them to never talk to the police.
Unless you’ve got a bullhorn and a big crowd.
Then you can make an exception.

/ / /

19 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

This is poem 29 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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