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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
Norman Crane Oct 2021
come in with the moon
and stay awhile like starfish
stay in a tide pool
both of us under its sway
then parting—
                       moon pulling away
Norman Crane Sep 2020
love is the crustacean
who remains after the moon
has pulled away the waters of infatuation
Norman Crane Apr 2021
listen to them wingmongers
circling round
squawking about how
there be tiny cities on the ground
moss barble asphalt
laid down
betwixt twig-mud megatowers
architecture of invisible sound
leaves decomposing, ants scurrying
spider weaving her web,
connecting flowers like power
lines buzzing beetles hurrying
all the way down the naturebound
highway,
off-ramps to the nine burrows
past the dead squirrel,
through the downpour
of fungal spores more
self-sustainable than any city of yours,
screech the wingmongers,
and from dirt level
i understand their song
these tiny cities will be
long past
when our civilization's long gone
Norman Crane Sep 2020
We came but our children have barely time
for us for they are leading busy lives.
When we were younger we had barely time
for us for we were leading busy lives.
How it passes: like the train that brought us,
winding but with purposeful direction.
How it passes: like steam above tea cups,
a gently rising evaporation.
We had tea with the widow of our son.
Our train returns home early. Life goes on.
Inspired by Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu's 1953 film Tokyo Story. Ozu's simple and gentle style is one of cinema's great treasures, and I hope to one day be able to do it justice in words.
Norman Crane Oct 2020
remember when
we met between the lines
two pages
bound
by a thread of time
Norman Crane Sep 2020
He was a toad catching flies
Except that with each lashing of his tongue
He pulled down aircraft
And long could be heard their cries:
Blessed be, Amphibian Creator!
Death to America!
Frog is greater!
Norman Crane Sep 2021
tonight the tide comes in
fully. tomorrow
we'll need glass bottom boats
to see new york city.
the flood lights
the deluge
reflecting the moon,
pulling the water over us
like a blanket. soon
our lungs will become pumps,
recovering—
forever—
the statue of liberty.
Norman Crane Sep 2021
trains speeding by
the city immense and i
waiting for you
at the grand central station
waiting for you
in plaintive introspection
waiting for
my life to arrive
at the grand central station
trains speeding by
trains speeding by
Norman Crane Apr 2021
reach out ye white antler antennae
up to the succulent sky
tree teach me how to always be
growing, spreading finger branches high
teach me roots
teach me the hidden why
of the fruit of not every leaving
is to die, tree
reach out ye white antler antennae
and blossom me into life
Norman Crane Oct 2021
tree branch reflections
on the windshield
spread like cracks in glass
      the landscape rushes past
we feel
our imperfections
spread like cracking glass
      on faces that we know
flicker:in the headlit glow
to where it is we go
when ourselves we no longer know

strangers in a car
speeding somewhere in the dark
Norman Crane May 2021
me and you and god
makes three:
i asked, do you believe
in polygamy?
Norman Crane Aug 2020
only the broken hearted
have started to learn

what it means
to love
Norman Crane Aug 2021
blood slithers snakelike
from cold neck to grated hole
a serpent in hell
Norman Crane Sep 2021
an oath—
broken by the
mouth, unspoken,
that spoke it, broken
not by word but by deeds,
kissing, and a marriage bleeds.
Norman Crane Aug 2021
sweet birdsong consumes
the bitterness of cities
a summer morning
Norman Crane Sep 2021
city din under
-standing passengers passing
below the l train
Norman Crane Oct 2021
plans of youth, they've gone,
into these lives we've settled
dust upon a drum
V
Norman Crane Sep 2020
V
water drops
     drip on rocks
          from the tops
               of tomahawks
Norman Crane Sep 2020
black lives matter so
black lies matter so
dive in deep waters to
die in deep waters to
be seven as the samurai
be seen as the samurai
your mind curved
your mind cured
starve and
stare and
carving your name in history make
caring your name in history make
the world: invert
the world: inert
an ideology to believe
an ideology to belie
The challenge here was to start with a line, then make the next line the same but for the subtraction of one letter (in this case, v) and follow the same pattern for the duration of the poem.
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
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
Norman Crane Sep 2021
follow her follow
her doubled in greenlit
rooms,   golden bridges
possess her    /    she is possessed
of death: falling—.  in love again.
Norman Crane Oct 2020
riverside dusk
      daylight's pale remains
a sanctuary
Norman Crane May 2021
childhood ends not with a celebration
but by the sound of an alarm clock,
with clothes laid out for you
not by your mother on your bed but on the sidewalk
by the governor / engines idling at red lights,
they never change, we never doubt,
we've been dying here for years,
isn't it strange that nobody ever gets out?
we remain in obedient slow pursuit,
we zombies of the morning commute,
we wageheads, we employable undead,
we were people once,
we listened to what the grown-ups said
Norman Crane Oct 2021
wake up, he'd said, she
remembered,
in a dream,
awakening reality,
and herself within it,
and the feeling lingered,
all morning
she saw through the translucent
world, as slowly opaqueness
returned, in the afternoon,
falling asleep,
again
Norman Crane Aug 2021
diagonally
wet lines slice the dry summer
storm rages; sun rests
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.
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 2021
whales rise from the sea like blimps,
soaring,
we see them from rooftops,
plainly distorted,
through unclean high-rise windows,
in cars, gridlocked and craning
our fragile human necks,
inhaling smog,
blowholes struggling,
against the urban skyline—
they pop

there are no more whales anymore,
more and more, we wanted,
until there were no more
oceans, forests,
plains, only rocks, cliffsides and amenities
in which we churn, keeping our
heads down,
chins tucked safely,
never looking up, lest we see
the exploded whales raining down
on us, a final rain
of guilt and consequence
Norman Crane Oct 2022
What ugly brilliance burns within the face,
Of the man who switched his head for the Sun,
The Earth, in orbit round his skull in space,
Becomes a Hell: his heat—melting everyone.
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
Norman Crane May 2021
downpast where the divermin dont go
is an underwater sun
that casts a blackhole shadow
in to the fishes swim
but they donnot swim out
where oh where do they fishes go
after theybin drowngone in the shadow
after theybin infosucked by the blackhole
i say i dont know
but some days i think i seem them
floating on the cloud forms
as crows
Norman Crane May 2021
a filthy habit
drying in the sun / spotted
with little bits of nun
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
Norman Crane Oct 2022
Wild ducks swim the flooded streets,
Dead men float face down,
What do the living eat,
When civilizations drown.
Norman Crane Nov 2021
It was eighteen hundred and nine
when William Blake was visited
by a vision of the divine
angel, which sat upon his bed,
and conferred on him God's power
to raise—by speech—the faithful dead.
"As writing's done, now come the hour
to act," the glorious angel said.
"To blaze against the shadowmist
spewed by the dark satanic mills.
Thy sole command is thus: Resist,
for all the shadow touches, it kills."
Then the angel disappeared, and
Blake was left alone. "An army
of undead," he thought, "to stand
with me against the vile industry?"
So it was that Blake visited
crypt, churchyard and cemetery,
where by pure incantation did
he resurrect the very
victims of the mine and factory.
He spoke; their limbs burst through the soil,
skeleton-men singing, "Glory
to the Almighty!"  /  "Accursed toil
killed you, but I grant you new life!"
Blake intoned, and, gazing at them,
a sea of white frothing strife,
knew they would create Jerusalem.
When the British Prime Minister,
Spencer Perceval, learned of Blake's
sorcery, he sensed sinister
times, telling parliament, "Mistake
at your peril the poet's crusade,
inhuman in its unnature,
aimed at the progress we have made,
as rumour. The legislature,"
he said, "must brace for civil war."
Meanwhile, Blake and his bone legion
wrecked utter havoc in the north,
cleansing greed-sin from the region.
Coal production fell—ton by ton.
Parliament did send a thousand men,
but still nothing could be done.
They fought. Blake beat them. ‘twas then
that drowning in desperation
Perceval turned to the great
industrialist, Ward.  “Save our nation,”
he beseeched, “from its dreadful fate.
Our way of life is threatened, and
our common profits are at stake.”
Ward pondered. Then revealed his plan:
“A million souls, kiln-baked,
dismembered and reassembled
into one giant defender—”
“A million dead?” Perceval trembled.
“Would you rather we surrender?”
So it was done. Forced from their homes;
burnt, screaming; pleading for mercy.
From their congealed human loam
was born: a Titan of Industry!
Profit-seeking automaton,
one thousand feet tall. Steel plated.
Violent. With superhuman brawn.
Switched on—yet never to be sated.
“This beast,” said Blake, “we meet head on!”
as he rallied his undead troops
before their assault on London.
The city teemed with fresh recruits,
watching, waiting, in unabating
fog: their Titan’s excreted smog.
A general was just stating
how the fight would be a slog—
When Blake appeared on the horizon,
followed by a river of bone,
white warriors with sharpened limbs
under the banner of a tombstone.
“Now!” Ward instructed the Titan.
It lumbered forth: into the fray!
Met by the surging skeleton
wave, as Blake knelt down to pray,
and Perceval, looking away,
went mad from the clattering din.
British soldiers charged into grey
death. The Titan pushed deep within
Blake’s crumbling lines. Kneeling, he cried,
“Why, God, have you abandoned us?”
Ward laughed, and the Titan pounded
the undead into calcium dust.

Until—silence:

The Titan was the master. / Jerusalem would not come to pass.
Norman Crane Aug 2021
birds switch direction
against the sky, the flock turns
black ink on grey clouds
Wit
Norman Crane Aug 2021
Wit
to wit, to know it
with wit a whit of witness
to twitter nitwits

— The End —