ambient guitar music for feline escape artists
this morning the cat got out
this afternoon I found him
a guitar winds its way
through the bedroom
the cat sleeps through it
/ / /
27 February 2025
Charlottesville VA
Jason Crane Posts
last words before sleep
a fake ocean for company
windows open, warm night
/ / /
26 February 2025
Leave a CommentCircle Pit
We’re packed into L’Anti Bar
while Crachat slams into their last song.
They’re wild, ferocious, loud, glorious.
A room full of hometown fans
jump and smash and sing along.
Then it’s over. During the break
two locals talk to me in English.
They want to know why I’m here
in Québec for a punk show.
They recommend bands and a cool bar
for the after-party, not knowing
I’ll be in bed as soon as the next band is done.
Stephanie and I get closer to the stage.
It’s time for Taxi Girls, the reason we added
hours of extra driving to an already long trip.
They rip into the first song,
leave claw marks on the crowd.
Stephanie weaves even closer,
phone camera as talisman.
I hold our coats, sleeves stuffed with
festival t-shirts, keffiyehs, our hats.
The band starts “The Lion’s Share.”
We belt out the words. I play air guitar
under the coats. Nerd to the core.
After the show we chat with the band,
buy records, get them signed,
walk to our rented apartment
through the frigid night,
slowing down to photograph
queer anarchist graffiti
because we’re queer anarchists.
La musique punk est
le langage universel
de la révolution.
21 February 2025
Québec
Exploration
The music of an oud
dances across the room
as we lie in bed together
at the end of a full day.
We started with tea
in a cafe near the hotel,
then visited an artist friend,
a record store,
and a trans bookstore.
A typical day for us,
no matter where we are.
We followed the St. Lawrence
from Montreal to Québec,
then ate ramen
in a restaurant where the staff
spoke Fraponaise.
Tomorrow it’ll be more records
and books and anarchist shops,
then a punk show at night,
later than we’re usually awake.
The joy of exploring new places
is magnified by doing it with you.
Two brains and two hearts
combining to see and feel more
than either could alone.
/ / /
20 February 2025
Québec
The Blizzard Of ’25
George, our server, said
the city hasn’t seen this much snow
since the 1800s.
We’d taken a winding track
through narrow neighborhood streets
made even more impassable
by six-foot drifts on each side.
Buried sidewalks meant the shreds of street
were filled with people,
stumbling and slipping on the way home.
From inside the Syrian restaurant
it all seemed like a distant memory
as we sipped cilantro mocktails
and sliced into fried cheese dumplings
with a tomato and quince jam.
The trouble with travel, I always find,
is the having to go back, just when
you were imagining you wouldn’t.
/ / /
18 February 2025
Montreal
Elephant
We eat vegetable tikka and baija,
talking about TV shows,
prog rock performances,
role-playing games.
We see the elephant in the room.
Eventually we walk over to look at it.
It sits there, quietly taking up space,
breathing in more oxygen than we do,
subtly coloring the air with its smell.
The elephant comes for all of us in time.
When we see it approach,
the most we can do is to find those we love,
pull them close, share a laugh in a cold wind.
/ / /
17 February 2025
Charlottesville VA
Between
Sitting in a coffee shop
that used to be a Chevy dealership
it occurs to me that it’s been 17 years
since I lived in this city.
Where the hell have I been?
The Bop Shop is gone from the Village Gate.
Most of the stores and restaurants I knew?
They’re gone, too.
There’s a pride flag on our old house,
so that’s nice.
I doubt my sons would even recognize it.
This is their hometown in the way Lenox is mine.
It’s where they were born, but not
where they grew up.
Today I bought some clothes
with the name of my high school.
The team name has changed.
I have changed.
I’m trying to reconnect with this part of my past.
So many terrible things happened here.
But it’s where I’m from.
I want to be from somewhere.
I want there to be places where my feet
are on familiar ground.
I’ve tried to manufacture one for decades
based on five golden years.
I’ve tried to suppress another based on
seven years of abuse and depression.
My sister has a hometown.
My kids have one, too.
I’m floating out in the space between,
looking for a place to land.
/ / /
16 February 2025
Rochester, NY
Let Me Come In And Talk To You About Dire Straits
Dan Bern said he was the Messiah.
Dire Straits said if two men say
they’re Jesus, one of them must be wrong.
As far as I know, I’m not who you’re waiting for.
But come in anyway and have a cup of tea.
Life is both long and short,
and just when you’re tired as fuck of the whole thing,
you get a glimpse of the alternative
and cling to the now like a barnacle
on the hull of a ship.
I used to sail when I was a kid.
Now watching a movie set on a boat
makes me seasick. We change, at least a little.
If I ever get to London,
I’ll climb on a box at Speakers’ Corner
and proclaim myself the Lord
just to see what happens next.
Eventually somebody might be right.
Ah, there’s the kettle.
/ / /
13 February 2025
Charlottesville VA
Confronting A Difficult Truth In Middle-Age
I’m the kind of person
who wears turtlenecks
unironically.
/ / /
12 February 2025
Charlottesville VA
Quantum Entanglement
We’re all trying to step
off the merry-go-round,
but we’re strapped to the horses,
whose grins are maniacal,
whose hooves never quite
touch the ground,
while the calliope plays
on and on and on.
/ / /
11 February 2025
Charlottesville VA
That’s It For Tonight
I couldn’t face leaving the house again
so I had groceries delivered
which meant they were twice as expensive
as if I’d just gone shopping
and then when the delivery person
dropped them off and I
stepped outside to get them
the kitten escaped and ran off
into the neighborhood
and it took two separate rounds
of chasing him with a flashlight
over the course of nearly two hours
until he was finally back in the house
and just as I got settled down
to write this poem describing it all
the neighbor knocked on the door
to let me know the kitten got out
but I told him the kitten was back
and that’s it for tonight.
/ / /
10 February 2025
Charlottesville VA
No Thanks, Professor
And in the end
they crowned a king
because his friend
destroyed a ring.
But we need neither
king nor steeple:
return all power
to the people.
/ / /
9 February 2025
Charlottesville VA
A Hole Where A Heart Had Been
It can’t be stitched, patched or mended.
Time will not heal it.
You can see the sky through it.
And if you put your ear to it,
you can hear an ocean of tears.
/ / /
8 February 2025
Charlottesville VA
The title is a line from We Travel Econo,
a documentary about the band
The Minutemen.
Ambience
Music For Airports
fills the room like
incense smoke
as we take our pills,
perform our ablutions,
try to coax the cat into bed,
commiserate about the world,
then let sleep take us.
/ / /
7 February 2025
Charlottesville VA
All My Dreams Are Of Escape, Part 2
Every day I fight the urge
to get in my car and drive
until I max out my credit cards
buying gas and roadside food,
leaving behind me a question
shaped like emptiness.
/ / /
6 February 2025
Charlottesville VA