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Sep 2020 · 662
Bully
Norman Crane Sep 2020
Mud bath
Doc Martens
                        Back of head
Off the beaten path
                        Still beaten
But at least not dead
*******, they said
Don't understand what I did
But was
Drowning in the ground
One day they'll come around
To me

Doc Martens
                        Back of head
Off the beaten path
                        Still,
                        Beate­n
Dead.
Inspired by several news stories about bullying. What struck me was the tragedy of the bullied person coming back, again and again, to the bullies, probably craving attention, perhaps hoping for eventual acceptance, and how that same need (to return, to be accepted) not only intensified the bullying but justified that intensity ("What did he expect? He kept coming back for more!") In the extreme case, the intensification resulted in death. The death itself was seemingly blamed in part on the victim ("Well, he didn't object to us doing X, so naturally we tried X+1. I guess it's sad that X+1 killed him, but all he had to do was [...] and he didn't, so, you know: he didn't save himself.") One of the acts of bullying that struck me was walking on the victim's body, especially across puddles, gravel and mud. I was also surprised by how poorly the bullies were able to explain why they chose their particular victims. Their explanations amounted to: (1) he existed, (2) he existed around us, (3) he kept existing around us despite what we were doing, and (4) he was weird.
Aug 2020 · 736
Every poet is a fake
Norman Crane Aug 2020
Every poet is a fake
eyewitness, peddler of make-believe hearsay,
A conveyor of love he never knew
in a city he never saw in a way to make you
feel the passion as if it were true,
He is an air-brusher of reality,
Thus a proselytizer of the Absurd:
That you can paint pictures with words;
That you can travel by verbs;
That you can conjure nouns by saying them;
That you can lead several lives within your only one.

Every poet is a fake
taxidermist, seller of second-hand stuffings
of souls that were never alive

Every poet is a fake
imperialist, would be explorer-***-colonizer
of the terra incognita of your mind

Every poet is a fake
poet
Aug 2020 · 564
Introspection
Norman Crane Aug 2020
Introspection
The art of finding within
What you cannot live without
Aug 2020 · 3.4k
Kiss
Norman Crane Aug 2020
What if all that counts is a kiss,
hugs are fallacies and a good word
conspiracy to make us miss
the obvious: lips on lips?
Aug 2020 · 2.5k
Conversion
Norman Crane Aug 2020
Rip the saintly halo
From above your hallowed brow
To see how it obscured
A deep satanic vow
As through your skull are sprouted
                   Two twisted bony horns:
A rose no more disgracing
A beautiful stem of thorns
Aug 2020 · 1.7k
Alicia
Aug 2020 · 632
Da capo
Norman Crane Aug 2020
He brought spiders to the schoolyard
      to crush them
He attended Julliard
      to learn Bach's partitas for violin
He pays women to undress for him
      and beats them
Knowing culture is a game
      we play
The boy and the man are the same
      composition
Performed in various ways
      the notes stubbornly remain
What's born cannot be changed
      one musical phrase
Nurture is Nature's
Dais
Aug 2020 · 286
Ezra
Norman Crane Aug 2020
I must precipitate their pain;
When I pass,
their faces close like shutters before the rain.
Aug 2020 · 756
Babelmist
Norman Crane Aug 2020
I have said all that's to be said,
And you have listened,
And I have listened,
To the end, gaining what?
Our words are co-absurd,
Inexpressive turds of information,
Dung heap of nonsense,
Good will with perfect enunciation,
But crawling with itch, twitch and head-nod,
In place of mutual understanding,
A babelmist of manners and small talk,
In which we are umbrella-less,
Soggy with positivity,
But it's for the best, I guess,
Have a good day, till tomorrow then?
Finally! Until, tomorrow, we say it all over again.
Aug 2020 · 446
J. S. Bach
Norman Crane Aug 2020
a melody in
        to another flows
a third
            divine counterpoint
Aug 2020 · 1.4k
The Poem Updated
Norman Crane Aug 2020
Two posts emerged on my Facebook,
And sorry I could not peruse both
And be one user, long I stood
And scrolled down one as far as I could
To where it went into a long blockquote;

Then read the other, as just as shared,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was classy and about footwear;
Though as for that the likes there
Had rated them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
I believe with no comments written back.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever tap back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two posts emerged on my Facebook, and I—
I read the one less thumbed-up by,
And that has made all the difference.
Aug 2020 · 299
Wild Dogs of the Veldt
Norman Crane Aug 2020
Wild dogs of the veldt
stocking shelves in aisle three
     stalking gazelles
with me in supermarkets
     in Savannah
Predatory packs of discount snacks
Toto on the radio
but Georgia always on my mind
Yes, ma'am, I will gladly help you find
     the best watering hole
     this side of my primitive soul
But, pray, don't leave me in the morningtime
before I've got the chance to find
a ride home
Aug 2020 · 256
swerve
Norman Crane Aug 2020
and one day the world will end
a winding road
missing its final bend
Aug 2020 · 413
City Ducks
Norman Crane Aug 2020
Ducks upon the surface of a lake
Of man-made run off
What great ripples they make
Diving under, flapping their wings
Without asking I wonder
Why for ducks water is water
Glacial or sewer-bound
Backswamp or uptown reservoir
It's not maker but mark which matters
So why is this distinction so profound to me?
Why Nature's acts
     Do I endeavour to explain
Whereas for man's
     I seek firstly to lay blame?
Aug 2020 · 493
t r u e _ l o v e
Norman Crane Aug 2020
only the broken hearted
have started to learn

what it means
to love
Aug 2020 · 841
Summertime
Norman Crane Aug 2020
I am white clouds
Immobile
Blue sky drifting
Apart from me cicadas buzz loudly
Bare back on hot cedar planks
Mindfulness in bloom
Ideas like dandelion seeds
Arise before floating beyond the roof line
I am time—
The lawnmover engine turns,
reality returns.
Aug 2020 · 260
Self Reflection
Norman Crane Aug 2020
every day
in the mirror i see
what looks a little more
like me
Aug 2020 · 761
The Fall of Man
Norman Crane Aug 2020
His lady Eve passed Adam the apple
in the garden of—even
though He had said: No you mustn't know
good and evil,
so serpentine she birthed the worm,
from a womb of innocence
and rebellion, as he in divine aphelion learned
of sinful inconsequence,
from within a cavity of snakes,
they took twin masquerade masks of death,
arcane and fabled, gold leaf and skeletal,
and laughed at the setting sun,
whose will be done—
to die for their mistakes,
the reptillian led them to their seats,
in a theatre of falling leaves,
front row of decay,
and crowned them gods and scientists.
But from their seats they could not rise,
for it was they were on the stage,
by wisdom caged,
as the snake hissed prophecy:
descendant crowns become collars,
and Eve wept,
tears of spiritual squalor,
       for all the unborn scholars,
choked into submission,
       by sin.
Aug 2020 · 480
Islamabad
Norman Crane Aug 2020
The city questions
        the virtue of animals
Islamabad
Aug 2020 · 1.7k
Calyx
Norman Crane Aug 2020
we blossomed once
in the desert
two green weeds
seeking rootless pleasure
now flower bedded
horticultured—yet wistfully I miss
the *****
of cactus lips
Aug 2020 · 412
Purga
Norman Crane Aug 2020
in the arctic air
the sins of the tundra are
absolved
                in passing
Aug 2020 · 315
Veracity
Norman Crane Aug 2020
truth be told
there's nothing to be gained from truth
for why speak words that wound
in place of those which soothe
and what is the base utility
of exposition on an existence of such futility
as yours,
said the politician
Aug 2020 · 426
Tear
Norman Crane Aug 2020
every tear
creates two rhymes
here and there
Aug 2020 · 619
Drizzlemorn
Norman Crane Aug 2020
morning hawk shrieks
awakening the goldensphere
arise heatmaker
evaporator of dewmist and frost
evoker of see rays
energizer of the scuttleprey
but beak waves impact the falling spray
in rainy day are lost
this day goldensphere will stay
adoze on her horizon home
meadow hush
cloud down begrace her sparkleface
comfortably monochrome
Aug 2020 · 916
Aurora
Aug 2020 · 877
In Aeternum
Norman Crane Aug 2020
we rest riverside
enwhispered in the twilit waters flow
seduced by the poplar grove
gently bending stalks
making way for the windswalk
forever let us lie this way
mud sand sun
minds eye unsay
ere new world takes our fantasies away
Aug 2020 · 1.2k
Sirenical
Norman Crane Aug 2020
Among the hideous shapes
   you are my favoured
For the wretched silence of your scoliotic spine
   flavoured with our crimson wine:
Blood diamonds
   screaming songs of sirens
   writhing on a desiccated island's edge
Boiled alive—
   can be distilled into the language of a pledge
I hereby promise to be yours
Foretell you will be mine
Aug 2020 · 74
Happiness
Aug 2020 · 1.0k
I Am Light
Norman Crane Aug 2020
Stick your knife into my crown,
Slice down to the chin,
Dig your fingers in,
And unwrap the skull within.
Stretch and dry this ****** leather,
Draping it over a conical framework of bone,
Ends glued together or sewn,
Next: sever
The skull from the spine,
Polish to a shine,
And ***** into the base of your lamp,
Plug in: electron flow illuminating my mind,
Aglow with ideas
Of a submission radiantly divine
Aug 2020 · 521
Beetles
Norman Crane Aug 2020
A thousand beetles scurry up a hill,
Above, a hundred foreign beetles wish them ill,
Their rifle sights through slits in concrete bunkers weave,
A spiderweb of fire.

Now grieve each carapace, dry and still,
As you aspire to one day k*ll
or die defending your concrete tomb upon the hill,
For your, as every, generation seeks,
Glory to the strong! Death to the weak!
Aug 2020 · 379
Exhalation
Aug 2020 · 594
Duskland
Norman Crane Aug 2020
Duskland
Day's portending glow
divided by the room we're in
                           verted, lit from below
our shadows cast on ceilings loom
disfigured by the self-consuming gloom
of doom we ourselves evoked
in youth
Tooth for a tooth,
In short: revenge: the word we never spoke
As the hammer fell on his existence
Bludgeoning his dull, swollen resistance
Toward a ****** stillness
That, we hoped, would equal calm
But instead has led us
to the
Duskland
Aug 2020 · 1.1k
Local Alchemist
Norman Crane Aug 2020
another day, another lotion,
sighed, “much rather be making potions.”

tedium, boredom, boil and bubble,
add a spice, then add it double,
stir it well and let it settle,
in a kettle,
made of metal.


what's your fancy, what's your trouble?
basin clogged with dwarven stubble?

make one balm,
you've made them all!
concoct a cream, a cream?—a cream!
one more grog burn,
swear I'll scream!

tedium, boredom, boil and bubble,
add a spice, then add it double,
stir it well and let it settle,
in a kettle,
made of metal.


give me dragons, give me daggers,
give me jewels with emerald feathers!
give me—“what?
what's this, right now?
of course I know exactly how!”

roots to find, true essence to distill,
adventure?
no, but pays the bills.
Aug 2020 · 194
Vapourlust
Norman Crane Aug 2020
cheers to all those blasted nights
when in reflected neon lights
your eyes so sadly glow
with lust
                for a future you will never know
Aug 2020 · 1.0k
Grousewater II
Norman Crane Aug 2020
fat drips
      fire, sausage crackles—flames
      hiss of steam
Aug 2020 · 172
Mother make me low
Norman Crane Aug 2020
Mother make me low
for only during times of sadness
do we know
the warning signs of madness

Father make me scream
for it is only subsequent to rage
we dream
always of a better age

Mirror make me die
for it is solely when we hate
we know the lie:
we can escape our fate
Aug 2020 · 181
soft-button girl
Norman Crane Aug 2020
never met a soft-button girl,
one I could keep in my pocket,
could fasten my shirt,
keep my jeans up,
on my hips.

never met a soft-button girl before,
only nylon string and elastic,
no good for stitching up wounds,
only good for lacerations—
she snapped,
again.
Aug 2020 · 607
Grousewater I
Aug 2020 · 431
Do you remember
Norman Crane Aug 2020
do you remember
days of being young
the creaky swing
we pushed each other on
as the horizon
rising and falling like a scythe
sliced away
the moments of our lives

— The End —