Crane Poems | Examples

Crane Dreams

Crane 
Autumn light
Soft moonlit shadows 
Rippled at water's edge.
Dream

Crane

beak wedged in white noise
twigs of legs snow-plant
plumage in the air
body borne invisible
muse contemplates wholesome bird

Folds

folds in a napkin
paper crane come to life
memories of you



AP: Honorable Mention 2025

Song of The Sandhill Crane No 1: ABAB

A descension of value bows night scenes,
the purple canopy edges its hoist,
spirits cool Platte River to lose its sheen,
Nebraskans wake to clarion fields voiced.
A loyal guest calls, it's the Sandhill Cranes,
dancing lessons, fields fattening corn orts,
pecking and choosing established campaigns.
Last state, go afoul, -- a date with the courts.
Locals aid their tally, most from afar,
It is nature's clock, all good things must end,
fly north to breed, and brood, and up to par,
A month's here, till next year, that's how the trend.
Awnings grey, triumphant stirs, the tension,
inspiring, crescendo ... the ascension.

The Crane Operator

Across the river there’s a crane
That’s 30 stories high,
The operator like
A Lego man up in the sky.

As loads are lifted in the air
And gently set in place,
I wish that I could clearly see
That operator’s face.

I know I would be terrified 
But likely, he is not.
I cannot fathom how he even 
Reached that sky-high spot.

Yet he is up there, hard at work
While safely down below,
I gaze at the construction site 
And watch the building grow.

Crane

During the night, husks of buildings haunt the skies.
A hook hangs high a universe away.
It appears like a body - the way light lies.
Don’t do this anymore: make it day, make it day.

A swift gust would make the body fly.
Further and further and then something is missing.
Without the hook, a crane would but sigh.
Scale it please - the wind is listening.

There’s no need to fret just don’t hang.
He did that and now he explores the clouds.
Catch the northern wind with that familiar pang.
Now you can see how dull lights are through these shrouds.

In the place where you stand,
In an ocean of metal caskets,
Every inch is unmanned
Just for now. You’ll have to wait for the rackets.

If the chain around your neck is inevitable.
Then jump off and hear what he said.
Wind blows everything that is stable.
And then he’ll tell you that you can’t be dead.

You can’t be.
He’d never let that happen to me.

You Crane, In Vain

You crane, your neck
To follow
Our cash

You crane, your neck
To see were 
It went

You crane, your neck
And know that
It’s trashed

They spend our checks
Pocket’s
Picked and spent

You crane, your head
When they say
Trust us

You crane, your head 
For some
Truth to glean

You crane, your head
At blatant
Injustice

War zones turn red
From dollars
Once green

You crane, your neck
At their
Power schemes

You crane, your neck
To have
A say

You crane, your neck
At youth’s
Broken dreams

As the bombs wreck
Their light
Fades away

Hart Crane

I have stood beneath your Bridge
and marveled at the music
being whispered in its wires.
I saw America flash pass
on your train riding west,
a kaleidoscopic rush of signs
knitted into a vision too large
to hold in one mind.
You drowned in its immensity.
Through the taut miles
of shuttling, the wind
still murmurs
your timeless prayers.

Crane

white modesty works
each day's food to procure craves ---
weathers worst, often

Work On a Building Site

Did you ever work on a building site,
And push and pull with all of your might.

Then walk in mud up to your knee,
And whistle at every girl you see.

Did ever carry a hod on your shoulder,
Then trip over a blooming great boulder.

Watched a crane move a ton in one lift,
Then look over at the great pile of sand they've asked you to shift!

Emagi Hart Crane- the Bridge'

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O Crane

Heads veiled in immaculate white,
Like cloistered nuns tanning in sun light;
As the farmer starts plowing, 
Flock around, twenty of you kowtowing;
Searching with your sharp eyes,
Finding and pecking little warms and flies...
Struggle to exist in environs hard,
That does not, often, your rights easily award...

Around ponds and lakes and rivers and seas,
When they're full or in drought wheeze;
You wait and watch standing on a single leg,
Seem as though to the almighty beg;
For your freedom of survival here on earth,
Midst livelihood, often, gone to dire dearth;
You do not seem to feel discouraged, yet,
But, with the ecosystem amalgamate and get set...!

Displaying elegance, loyalty, and closeness,
Ambition, endurance, and progressiveness; 
Exhibiting your eternal youthfulness,
You strive, struggle, migrate in sumptuousness; 
Living your life, here on earth, in its fullness,
Like us, humans, you attain eternal graciousness; 
Beyond limitless skies you would fly away,
Leaving behind this land-sea-ocean bay...!!!


16 March 2023

Crane

late summer sun,
     dogwood silhouettes -
cranes yawning

Dirty Peacock; the Night Crane

I saw you were perfect..
and I loved your confidence..
but I yearned to feel whole,
So I made a fling...

You saw my ego,
You smiled at my strength, 
you raised your brows and gave me a wink...
The night was blessed with cool breeze that gave rythms to cling..

I understood your manly display..
a bird with a grandest massive tail 

though it seemed you had a golden star,
though it seemed you had all flowers dance to your guitar...
though it seemed you had fine jars and feathers to make the tallest tree har..
Yet you seek to explode me into your fireworks of cigar..
but I am a crane in jakar..

my immunity from duty is my priority...
I seek no ideal instance.. 
I seek for a dirty dove to sour in comfort of our reality...
My beauty lies on being unapologetic..
I am a black night crane with no reverence for psychic..

Clerihew Crane

Hart Crane of Garrettsville
a tragic poet if you will
'The Bridge'  vision of America
jumped to this death north of Cuba

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