Showing posts with label cafe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cafe. Show all posts

Monday, February 26, 2024

Questions at a Cafe

The 3-year-old sips
his hot chocolate.
His face expresses
pleasure. He tells me,
"Cows make milk."
"That's correct," I say,
as if he needs my opinion.

His grandma, my wife,
is at the cafe counter
getting her drink (I sip
my two shots of espresso).

The 3-year old asks,
"How do cows make meat?"
I say, "Well, cattle, male
and female, eat a lot of
grass and hay to make
their muscles big."

I dread the follow-up
question and in my mind
see abbattoir images,
hear horrific terrified
bellowing, smell blood. 
The question doesn't come,

for he sees grandma
returning to our table
with her drink--a cafe latte--
made with oat "milk."

Hans Ostrom 2024

Thursday, January 11, 2024

You Hold the Door

You sometimes think, What
does any of this have to do with me?
Everything, of course. You and the
8 billion breathe the same air,
recycled from the air early Africans
breathed before the land
got named Africa. The children

bombs, bullets, and missiles kill
for not one single good goddamned reason
raise your ire, eve if you ire's impotent.

The woman earning her wage
at the cafe knows your name,
and you know hers, and you two
sometimes speak of San Francisco.

At any moment, someone you have
never met may need your help,
and you theirs. Still, a person

knows that others plan the future--
often by refusing to plan, often
with sinister, even evil, habits in play.
No way the future belongs to you.
You ask no one, To whom does it

belong?" You take a last gulp
of coffee bean syrup and watch
the woman pull the wool hat
over her ears and go outside
to smoke a cigarette, check
her phone, and be alone. On
the way out, you hold a door
for a stranger. He says, "Thanks,'
and you say, "You're welcome."

Hans Ostrom 2024

Sunday, June 19, 2022

Ragusa, Sicily: Festival Blues

At the Alta Villa Trattoria in Ragusa,
Sicily, as the St. Giorgio fest rolls
to a finish, you listen to small brass
bands haul their marches through
sun heat up toward the baroque 
cathedral, which manages to seem
at once imposing and cute. It's where

a solid silver ark holds "the bones
of various saints," an old man told you. 
George, the saint that counts, remains
forever young in painted wood, gentle
face, white horse, sharp lance. Later,

in an evening without breeze, everyone's
had about enough of whatever they thought
they'd come for in the festival. A hard woman
with a fish tattoo stuffs her phone in her jeans,
disgusted. She'll argue with anyone who 

wants to and some who don't. A toothless
ex-boxer is spruced up in an official white
shirt and red bandana. The Alta Villa 
Trattoria's mostly for locals. It's a living.
Nearby, the guy who sells hand-made
puppets plays Ella Fitzgerald all day,

so I stay, buying enough coffee & water,
salads &sandwiches, & bottles &
bottles of water to pay my way. 


Wednesday, April 15, 2020

More Than Enough in Ragusa

(southern Sicily)

In Ragusa most afternoons
I sat outside a cafe locals favored.
Iron tables. I didn't feel at home
there but I surrendered
my touristic pose to become
a mere outsider. My presence
seemed to amuse the waitresses,
whom I tipped respectfully.

I pecked at salads, sipped
water and coffee, scribbled,
looked from shade out at hot light
hitting brightly painted walls
and old stone buildings. I
was a large man in a white
linen shirt, and ursine scarecrow.
So much more than enough
that place provided.


hans ostrom 2020

Sunday, September 2, 2018

Train Station, Milano

Because you're exhausted,
not to mention privileged,
you rest in Milano's main station
and let it be a buffering space
between you and America's
grotesqueries. You wonder if
anyone uses the word grotesqueries
anymore. Prob'ly not. You can't deny
the passport in your pocket.

You prefer the station cafe,
which pigeons frequent. They
thrust their monocled eyes
into the mix, use crumbs
as dice, and gamble away
their past with glee. Their
conversations distill many
throated percolations. Same
goes for the people.

Words from many human
languages try the air. Your
wish not to hear American
English is granted. People
in the station are happy
to see each other, their
laughter isn't cruel, and
no one's belligerent. It
seems miraculous.



hans ostrom 2018

Wednesday, June 6, 2018