Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Norman Crane Oct 2022
wet leaves leave wet
trails on the asphalt
trails on the asphalt
leading lead horses through
heavy fog, heavy with the fall
days falling heavily away
heavy with water gathered from
the rain fall-
ing rain-
fall on lead horses on wet leaves
leaving wet trails on the asphalt
in the heavy fog in the heavy fog
Norman Crane Oct 2022
a fragile mountain of tiny clothes,
piled griefly on the floor,
unused and
of no more use to this oncebrief family anymore.

we should set fire to it. no,
we should expire within it. no,
we should pick up knives and in our denial of it know
finality of pain.

yet something stays the hand—

something and:
that no matter how intense the hurt,
you were, however faintly, too upon this Earth.
with us of us in us
you must   remain.

God, let us pray never to forget that day.

remembering it most when
we move through this hideous volume of silence,
                 in a house;
of broken geometry,
moving forward everything recedes,
waiting for something to happen. anything but the pale
sameness.

yet something stays the hand—

your face then
your eyes opening again
breathe in

this hope,
worth all the ******* pain in the world,

my dear little girl
in Heaven.
Norman Crane Oct 2022
The specialists hold open their dry mouths,
From which sprout-out scarlet jargonias,
Nonsensyllables resistant to drought,
That blooming reek of death and ammonia.
  Oct 2022 Norman Crane
Carlo C Gomez
Mondays in Van Nuys:
velvet morning, bee stings,
and medicating angels
wrapped in mesh,
at the scene of a fugitive motel,
swimming towards
*** and misery.

Nicotine lizard
fresh from film school,
and his molten young
interceptors
with corduroy legs,
scouting for girls
any way, shape, or form,
pinpointing them
in alphabetical order.

Flashing red light means go:
pretty Eve in the tub,
lit from underneath,
she sun shines,
her back to the prehension
from a survey of hands
and power tools.

No tan lines,
the boundaries of
this celluloid garden
begin at her knees
--a fleshprint,
start the Van de Graaff
and watch as she reels
the far faded whispers
of carnal quicksand.

A smell of peroxide and sweat,
her constant freezing
and thawing
totally crushed out,
the dark don't hide it.

Candy Bar
--it's not her real name,
but she smiles like
she means it,
lying is the most fun a girl
can have without taking
her clothes off.

Once again
the week gets lost in repeat:
a certain smile,
a certain sadness,
look on the bright side,
this isn't happiness.
Norman Crane Oct 2022
drums, as if; like quarterthump-thump
to the walking bassline, note after
note noted sax notes excavated some
-one -where -how 'lin screamin solo is hurt
in melody exploded (ain't got one)
pieces in a key of perpetual change
mode devours mood on sheets of sound
kind of giant blue steps taking miles by train
the future's improvised     and inwardbound.
Norman Crane Oct 2022
Love is a gangrenous limb,
Mangled and raw,
Never healing, love is a metonym,
Fatal ifn't offed     with a hacksaw.
Norman Crane Oct 2022
hawk stops atop a hornbeam
in an urban copse
leaves falling
how must everything to the hawk seem
a dream in a dream i have seen
him i have been
circling and soaring and
—the snap of a shutting laptop.
spell broken,
hawk on beating wings passing away,
passing she asks, how've you been?
i have been well, i say
i have been well, i say
Next page