in a haiku it is
generally best to do
whatever the fuck you want
/ / /
6 January 2024
Charlottesville VA
Jason Crane Posts
The Ocean
We’re both listening to
Richard Hawley.
Not together, but
together anyway.
When “The Ocean”
comes on I imagine…
it doesn’t matter.
But I’m certainly
picturing it as the violins
dance in the background.
There’s no key
for this painting.
We just have to guess
at the colors,
try to keep them from
spilling off the canvas.
“You’ll lead me down
to the ocean.”
Guitar solo.
Here comes a wave.
/ / /
5 January 2024
Charlottesville VA
The Many Worlds Hypothesis & Song To A Seagull
Joni Mitchell sang into
an open piano
when she recorded
her first album
because David Crosby
thought it would
enhance her voice —
and it did,
but it also magnified
the other sounds in the room
so they were forced to
strip away the high frequencies,
leaving a flatter beauty,
and this is why
I am careful when I
look at you
because the universe
has limits.
/ / /
3 January 2024
Charlottesville VA
Completeness
squirrel on the lawn
crow on the wire
(there’s a little piece
of my soul in you)
crow on the wire
squirrel on the lawn
(and a piece
of yours in me)
/ / /
31 December 2023
Charlottesville VA
I Wrote This For You
I wrote this for you
on the back of a napkin
passed over the bar
with a glass of soda.
I wrote this for you
on an app on my phone,
lying on the couch
during a long lunch break.
I wrote this for you but
it doesn’t matter because
you’ll never know you’re
the “you” in question.
I wrote this for you
to send it to the universe;
like background radiation
for a world in need of love.
/ / /
26 December 2023
Charlottesville VA
they leave us
nothing but our bones
stamped into the mud
/ / /
25 December 2023
Charlottesville VA
WINTER SOLSTICE TAROT READING
1. Embrace your Shadow: What aspect of yourself needs acknowledgement and acceptance during this winter solstice? The terms “rebirth” and “inner calling” are associated with this card. I feel both so strongly right now. I am returning to myself and also figuring out the next iteration of myself. With a lot of help from my friends, both old and new.
2. Cultivate Resilience: What obstacle are you being called to face with grace and courage? This card is associated with regret, which has been a major descriptor (self-imposed) of my life since at least the end of 2020 and probably earlier. I am slowly finding ways to move past it.
3. Nurture your Inner Light: What practice or action can you engage in to nourish your inner light and ignite a sense of purpose and inspiration as you move towards Imbolc? One of the ideas of this card is integration. I’m working on bringing together the various parts of me: poet, organizer, musician, broadcaster, friend, lover, and so on. I’m (re)learning how to be my total self. That means writing more, organizing more, playing more, feeling more.
4. Navigate Transformation: What old pattern, belief, or identity are you being called to shed to facilitate your inner rebirth? This is a card about rootedness. I’ve been struggling with the ideas of place and staying. In the past couple months, I have started to think differently about the place where I am right now, and about staying here and trying to build something.
5. Tap into Feminine Energy: How can you nurture and reconnect with your psyche (intuition, emotions and feminine wisdom) during this winter solstice? One idea that springs from this card is to focus on balanced relationships — ones where both people are giving and receiving. This doesn’t mean not being a support for those in need, but it does mean being aware of both my emotional resources and the emotional impacts of those relationships.
6. Presence: Which area of my life do I need to be more fully present in? Oliver Pickle writes that this card wants you to open yourself up to possibility in a spirit of joy. I have a friend who suggested that for months before I allowed circumstances to prove her right.
her back hurts
from lying on the ground
shred of clothing on the breeze
/ / /
21 December 2023
Charlottesville VA
For Bisan
Leave a Commentreporter / rocket / running
/ / /
20 December 2023
Charlottesville VA
even if you squeeze
your eyes shut:
cries from the rubble
/ / /
19 December 2023
Charlottesville VA
in Khan Younis a boy
holds an empty soup pot
no more haiku
/ / /
18 December 2023
Charlottesville VA
Meanwhile
“our colleagues are being killed
at the bedside of our patients”
meanwhile:
a toddler cannot stop shaking
as an aid worker
or maybe just a random civilian
gently strokes the side of her face
meanwhile:
an IDF soldier holds a machine gun
above a line of naked men
their hands tied behind their backs
their clothes in a pile in the street
meanwhile:
his head drooping, beard filled with ash,
the man in the PRESS vest wonders
how much longer he can possibly continue
meanwhile:
a car pulls over to the side of the road
two women in hijab hand a tray of
blueberry muffins out the window
to a lone protester
they wave and drive on
/ / /
7 December 2023
Charlottesville VA
Virginia/Gaza
We move boxes and couches, beds and lamps.
We pause to eat pizza and drink lemonade.
The kids help or play or get tired.
As we near the end there are gunshots
in the nearby woods. Hunters, or target practice.
The next-to-the-youngest one
asks if they’re fireworks.
We all say yes.
*
They move with nothing, to nowhere.
They keep their hands raised as they walk
but the soldiers shoot anyway.
There is gunfire everywhere.
There are explosions everywhere.
Flares set fire to the night
so the soldiers can keep shooting.
The next-to-the-youngest one
digs her baby brother out of the rubble.
/ / /
2 December 2023
Charlottesville VA
MY COMING OUT POST.
I’m bi.
It’s such a monumental thing for me to be able to type those two words. Over the past six weeks or so, I’ve been working through all this with two friends, initially, and then a couple other folks. But I didn’t start thinking about it a month ago. I started in 1993.
Back then, my friend Christian came out to me, and we started hanging out all the time, going to gay and lesbian clubs in Rochester, NY. I often found myself being attracted to genderqueer folks, although I didn’t have that term back then. I didn’t really know about bi identities either. The places we went were always “gay” or “lesbian.” I knew I wasn’t gay, and I knew I was a cis man (again, without that term being available), so lesbian was off the table. So I just assumed I was straight and an ally. I covered my car in pride stickers and wore a triangle pendant every day and dressed in cute overalls and followed Ani DiFranco on tour and was TOTALLY STRAIGHT.
Throughout my 20s and 30s I stayed connected to the queer community in various ways. I always wished I was part of it, but I never really thought I belonged in a real way. I danced outside Stonewall on the night same-sex marriage was legalized in New York. I wore “legalize gay” and “straight but not narrow” shirts. I went to rallies and marches and protests. A friend called me a “classic lesbian” and I thought it was the best compliment I’d ever received.
In my 40s I married a non-binary trans person and still said I was straight, even though I was just as into them when they presented as masculine.
Since moving to Charlottesville I’ve had some conversations that have finally caused me to really examine this part of myself. My friends Chaundra and Christian have helped me think about what it could mean to accept this identity, while also both saying they already thought I was bi, even if I didn’t. In Christian’s case, she’s thought that for 30 years. Another friend told me that someone we both know said in 2002 that they thought I was bi. So I guess I’m the last to know. ?
(Note 1: While typing this I’m also reminded that I listened to Depeche Mode in the 80s and thought David Gahan was super hot when he danced. Gosh I’m slow.)
(Note 2: After reading the initial draft of this, my cousin Lynne told me that I came out to her 30 years ago. Apparently I then bi-erased myself.)
As I’ve thought about this I’ve noticed some fascinating effects. For one thing, imagining myself as bi and queer has made me feel at home in my body in a way that’s never been true before. So many things about the way I move and carry myself and express myself just feel “right” if I see them through this new lens.
And as I’ve started to step back into an activist role, and thus to meet people in Charlottesville, I’ve had some chances to allow people to identify me as part of the queer community, so I’ve done that and it’s been wonderful.
I still have a lot of new territory to cover. I know it won’t all be easy, but right now I’m filled with a whole new kind of joy.
My name is Jason and I’m bi.
Nice to meet you.
The Stages Of Watering A Dead Plant
The first step is to not admit defeat.
Even as green turns to brown
and the leaves curl inward,
you must cling to delusion.
The soil will accept the water,
at least for a while.
It will join you in looking away
as you fill half a teacup at the kitchen sink
and upend it into the pot.
After a few days, though, the embarrassed soil
will release its burden onto the dish below.
This is the crucial moment,
as you dutifully carry the dish back to the sink,
then open the curtains
to bathe the corpse in light.
/ / /
25 November 2023
Charlottesville VA