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Aug 2021 · 203
Epitaph
Norman Crane Aug 2021
let the gravestone say:
he was buried like was born,
crying and alive.
Aug 2021 · 648
Embers
Norman Crane Aug 2021
the best has come and
gone—burned, never to return:
ashes in an urn.
Aug 2021 · 2.6k
The Fight
Norman Crane Aug 2021
on the ropes: pummelled;
somehow, he stays on his feet:
the bell ends the round!
Aug 2021 · 711
Cold Shoulders
Norman Crane Aug 2021
like water to ice
passion freezes into nice
words / hard hearts / love cracks.
Aug 2021 · 954
Presence
Norman Crane Aug 2021
accepting nothing
think without disconcerting
the unity of—
hear
Aug 2021 · 1.7k
Apple
Norman Crane Aug 2021
but does He please you?
asked the snake. nightfall in the
garden of eden
Aug 2021 · 1.1k
Astronauts
Norman Crane Aug 2021
we are astronauts,
alone,
among the stars seeking solace
in an infinite unknown.
we are suns.
we are daughters
of carbon—gravity-bound
to disposable celestial bodies
revolving against a cosmic background
radiation.
we are space stations.
we are planets,
populated sparsely.
if to each other we matter,
we matter only darkly.
Aug 2021 · 1.3k
He and she
Norman Crane Aug 2021
when already in his mind
he'd dusted himself off like a rooster
run down the hotel stairs
gotten on the train
to quickly
escape from her
to where the black pepper grows

she, snuggling up to
him with both eyes firmly closed
had already built with them
a house
smelling of dinner
and fresh children
to which he'd just come running
up the stairs

(in reality
he and she had slept
together for the first time
and lying
keep silent about this precisely
in two foreign
mutually unknown
languages)
My translation of Polish poet Józef Baran's "On i ona"
Aug 2021 · 1.6k
Urban Dawn
Norman Crane Aug 2021
sweet birdsong consumes
the bitterness of cities
a summer morning
Aug 2021 · 770
Crickets
Norman Crane Aug 2021
I told her: I know of such a place,
where the cats all come to die.
I asked her: do you want to see it?
She answered: no.
I told her: it's clean and it's important.
I told her: it's bright and it's first.
I asked her: do you want to see it?
She answered: no.
She said it in such a way
that I had to turn away from her.
Ever since then
I am slowly
approaching the exit.
My translation of Polish poet Marcin Świetlicki's "Swierszcze" ("Crickets")
Aug 2021 · 1.0k
Wings
Norman Crane Aug 2021
birds switch direction
against the sky, the flock turns
black ink on grey clouds
Aug 2021 · 1.9k
Carve
Norman Crane Aug 2021
chisel into rock
from no-form form: extracting
the sculpture within
Aug 2021 · 457
Flicker
Norman Crane Aug 2021
crazy moth crashes
against the bright hot light bulb
until it's ashes
Aug 2021 · 621
Antimnemon
Norman Crane Aug 2021
dozers clear the past
from a present, tense—into a
future imperfect
Aug 2021 · 870
Murmur
Norman Crane Aug 2021
dumb wind blows away
all the words smart people say
progress is decay
Aug 2021 · 319
Insignificance
Norman Crane Aug 2021
cruel arithmetic
(the world) less (the world less you)
equals zero
Aug 2021 · 584
Sheol
Norman Crane Aug 2021
I've mud on my face,
Dripping from my eyes,
The tears of the Earth,
Shed as the Earth dies.
I've fire on my cheeks,
Burning off my skin,
I've become the flames,
Of the Hell we're in.
Aug 2021 · 1.0k
Invocation
Norman Crane Aug 2021
Lithuania! My homeland! You are like vigour.
How invaluable you are, only he can figure,
Who has lost you. Today your beauty wholly I view
And seeing, describe it, because I long after you.

Holy ******, who guards Luminous Czestochowa
And shines in the Gate of Dawn! You, who watches over
Strongheld Novogrudok and its faithful populace!
As once you healed me, a child, so miraculous
(When into your care from my despondent mother bid
I lifted my already departed eyelid,
And soon could make my way on foot to your temple's door,
Having gone to offer thanks to God for a life restored),
So too you shall restore us to our homeland's womb.
Meanwhile, may you convey my soul from its longing's gloom
To those aforrested hills, those evergreen meadows,
Stretched wide across the space where the azure Neman flows;
To those vast fields, painted in varicoloured grain-dye,
A landscape gilded with wheat, silver-plated with rye,
Where the runch is amber, and the buckwheat white as snow,
Where like a maiden's blush the red clover overgrows,
And all's interwoven, as if by a ribbon, green
balk, within which a wild pear tree can sometimes be seen.
Here's my attempt at translating the Invocation from Adam Mickiewicz's Pan Tadeusz from Polish into English.
Aug 2021 · 190
Sympathy IV
Norman Crane Aug 2021
in exchange, you—
deal, he cried, shaking my hand
hope you guess my name
Aug 2021 · 700
Gravity
Norman Crane Aug 2021
scientism, n.
belief that god is special
relativity
Aug 2021 · 1.9k
Deluge
Norman Crane Aug 2021
ants protest the rain
in vain / water flows / terrain
specked with ant remains
Aug 2021 · 1.4k
Moth
Norman Crane Aug 2021
why do you have wings
if not to fly? /  for me to
pin you down by—
Aug 2021 · 1.3k
Clockface
Norman Crane Aug 2021
at this rate we die
beheaded by the second hand
nervous tick of hours
Aug 2021 · 520
Disquiet
Norman Crane Aug 2021
the sun belongs too
the night travels swift-like like
the heart beats:
scared
Aug 2021 · 1.7k
Warm Rain
Norman Crane Aug 2021
diagonally
wet lines slice the dry summer
storm rages; sun rests
Aug 2021 · 187
Rare
Norman Crane Aug 2021
the calm of a frog
consumed legs-first by a snake
a rare submission
Aug 2021 · 317
Wit
Norman Crane Aug 2021
Wit
to wit, to know it
with wit a whit of witness
to twitter nitwits
Aug 2021 · 655
Under
Norman Crane Aug 2021
blood slithers snakelike
from cold neck to grated hole
a serpent in hell
Jul 2021 · 353
Exchange
Norman Crane Jul 2021
red sun red skin white
blanket white fingers touching
ghosts of dead trade winds
Jul 2021 · 107
Butcherglass
Norman Crane Jul 2021
buzzing flies / warm blood
carcass of a slain cow through
abattoir windows
Jul 2021 · 1.2k
Teapot
Norman Crane Jul 2021
setting down the kettle,
in the light of the setting sun,
pouring water, the green tea leaves settle,
at the bottom of a teapot, brewed for no one.
Jun 2021 · 214
Forgotten
Norman Crane Jun 2021
I am leaves of tea,
Steeping till the water's cold,
Bitterness alone.
Jun 2021 · 195
Forest Heat
Norman Crane Jun 2021
summer air shimmers
sheets of melted glass flowing
through caverns of leaves
Jun 2021 · 100
Was
Norman Crane Jun 2021
Was
our marriage was
a double blind study of love
hypothesis disproved for
neither of us
can see the other any more.
Jun 2021 · 410
Broken Haiku
Norman Crane Jun 2021
pain succumbs to numb
nests decay in the twilight of the fall
ing rain
Jun 2021 · 110
Things Pass
Norman Crane Jun 2021
things pass
in and out of life they pass
do not grasp them
lest in their passing you too shall pass
away from you
becoming a thing also
May 2021 · 95
Hibernal
Norman Crane May 2021
when in winter winter clouds pour water
on the street leading your house unto mine
water freezes cars become an altar
streetlights light the hoods hoods reflect the shrine
to us together in this cold cold world
hand in hand in gloves, a boy and his girl
May 2021 · 257
Shadows
Norman Crane May 2021
the shadows passed
and they were gone
the shadows too
May 2021 · 112
c-ya_
Norman Crane May 2021
72 floors up
through sheets of pristine glass, cold
as cut from glacier,
the neon city lights are fire,
burning a receding horizon to ash,
swirling snow static,
legs dangling, lips draped with bubblegum,
fingertips depressing keys,
bit by bit arriving at the erasure
of the virtual,
a corporation of thieves.
she executes; post-execution
she breathes.
May 2021 · 129
Love Dispersing
Norman Crane May 2021
this morning
as i collect the thoughts
we scattered late last night,
i wonder, or perhaps i start to doubt:
why do we always fight?
when did our light—
go out.

the house sits quiet as you sleep,
these days, we're silent even when we shout,
but we had times
of such uncommon clarity—

i weep,
upward following the sweep
of steam rising from my cup of tea,
our love dispersing
May 2021 · 261
Beep
Norman Crane May 2021
"Credit? Debit?" / "Mastercard."
Card goes in. Entering PIN.
BeepBeepBeepBeep. Remove card.
Processing—I listen
to the cold ambient music.
"Thank you, and have a nice day."
"You too." / The cashier sounds sick.
I have nothing more to say.
The same words repeated day
after day. a ritual
antipathetic display
of our common plastic soul–
lessness.
May 2021 · 175
The Reader
Norman Crane May 2021
i read therefore i am
temporarily dead,
i flee from life to sentences
of death,
illusory present tenses
dulling corporeal sensations,
complexity replaced
by linearity and pagination,
i have lived a thousand simulated lives!
yet i fear mine,
and the words upon a page
become *****
i am a reader because i am a coward,
slowly by my drug being devoured
May 2021 · 95
Perchance
Norman Crane May 2021
When I sleep,
I am awake,
As I wake,
I was asleep,
Wakefulness
is merely seeping,
Of our darkly,
Deepest sleeping.
May 2021 · 84
Rhythms
Norman Crane May 2021
winter contains spring
new warmth cradled by ancient wings
i am watching the surf
go out, come in
considering rebirth
all things which i have been
i was dead
but now i am living
each winter contains a spring
an energy coiled within
causing the world to spin
causing the world to spin
Norman Crane May 2021
it is difficult to remember now,
through the kaleidoscope nightmare of the river,
endlessly flowing,
endlessly flowing,
but we lived once much as you,
we'd love hope and family,
and it ended just as it will end one day for you,
in dispersion of the light and melting of the cosmic consciousness,
drip drip drip from space into your mind,
drip drip drip,

it was the middle of the night,
and the dog started barking so i took him to the yard,
the wife said,
it was dark and the stars shone like pin ****** through black velvet,
the dog said,
he was uneasy and barked at the night sky,
which dispersed like startled ravens,
and the light from all the stars became sound,
each a string plucked,
vibrating,
the sound pleased me and i attuned the ear,
as all around windows lit up bright rectangles,
and people came outside onto grass and concrete,
and stared up at the singing sky,
the dog had fallen on its side,
tongue out eyes twitching,
but the starsong prevailed and i knew the dog had understood,
and that i too would understand,
it is inevitable,
the wife said,
i love you and i love you too,
i said,

i was fear,
the stars bloomed into lightflowers,
and the bees awoke,
and ascended to drink their luminous nectar,
before bursting as fireworks,
in dispersion remaining etched upon the sky like scatter without time,
multiplying i reminisced childhood,
dust caught in attic sunlight,
each scatter birthing stars whose brightness equaled the original,
and in their accumulation night became bright as day,
i reminisced death,
brighter than,
colours so vivid the mind pained,
and starsong became starscream and the colours leeched away,
to whiteness,
to nothingness,
and we covered our eyes as its unbearable intensity melted all before us,
including us,
and we were blind,
and i felt myself pouring out my sockets,
i loved my wife and she me,
but we were no more,

in blindness i coagulated,
the world of shapes was finished and all persisting was consciousness and nightmare,
of loss,
of ending,
of the forever and the nevermore,
in concentration i perceived my consciousness,
suspended within melted eyes,
trickling through blades of disappearing grass,
a single fear,
meeting other consciousnesses,
human and non,
viscous as dreadhoney,
and within each another fear,
and in their union i became from one to many nightmares,
immediately and at once,

the trickle sped as the grass was not,
and the reality flats declined,
down we ran,
an accumulation of nightmares,
liquid eyes beyond the bodypast crying fears of individual terror experienced in common,
down toward the river.

and we were in,

like a single mind burning in universal agony,

riverchurch of the ******,

guided currently by the high priests of nothingness but experience,

overload of knowing,

from swerve of shore to bend of bay,

we flow,

awaiting you /

for you to flow as us
May 2021 · 112
Dreamer
Norman Crane May 2021
see me beneath the tree
slumbering peacefully
let me be let me be
blue sky inkwell of time
within i dip my quill
life is lines life is lines
lines is all it shall be
written deceitfully
set me free set me free
May 2021 · 104
Syllables
Norman Crane May 2021
The phone rings.
I answer.
"How are things?"
"I've cancer."

"God, mom, I—"
"It's OK."
"Will you die?"
"Soon, they say."

I'm silent.
My words fail.
Cigarette:
in- / exhale.

"So take care."
(My voice shakes.)
"Hang in there."
(My heart breaks.)

I'm silent.
My words fail.
Cigarette:
in- / exhale.
May 2021 · 249
Lindens
Norman Crane May 2021
spring succeeds chill air
old lindens leaf out and bloom
birdcall and tisane
May 2021 · 117
Love Cap
Norman Crane May 2021
once under a rainy day
we met, huddling beneath the cover
of a mushroom to keep dry,
now the sun has long since chased the clouds away,
yet here we stay,
together: i still love her,
and shall until the fungus of our love
is dry
May 2021 · 102
May
Norman Crane May 2021
May
the warm west wind blows
frost-bitten spring leaves away
white clouds replace grey
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