Jason Crane

POEM: Cale on the 6

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I wrote this today on the 6 train while listening to John Cale’s album Vintage Violence.

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Cale on the 6

John Cale’s on the uptown 6
singing about Adelaide
Spring to Bleeker to Astor Place
on a November day
that finally feels like winter
there’s a guy a few seats down
who’s a ringer for Robert Pinsky
(whom I last saw in Boston
reading poems to commemorate 9/11)
five more stops and I’ll be at the temple
with the money lenders and usurers
meanwhile there are happy hands
clapping on the Cale album
and a tambourine that sounds
like a baby laughing
I feel I should tell you this
so we’ll both know

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