Showing posts with label electricity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label electricity. Show all posts

Sunday, January 28, 2024

Conductors, You and I

Me and you, protons
and electrons through and 
through atoms that compose
our noses and toes. We
give off light and heat, you
know, of course you know,
oh omnivorous power plants
are we as we with our flows
of energy, heating each other
up in beds and other close
quarters, which is why
windows of cars and buses
fog up and sweat and even
trickle tears. Conductor
of electricity, today I shall try
to sluice my energy
appropriately in public and in
this wired-up, copper-webbed
abode, this wireless, fireless
cave. It's kind of exciting
to my neurons to have a bit
of lightning coursing through
what one calls one's brain,
which rewires itself in sleep to dream.


Hans Ostrom 2024

Friday, March 5, 2021

All Electric Poem

This poem used to sound
like a gargling dinosaur,
for it ran on petrol. Now
it's all electric and whirs
like an old cat's throat.

My friend rode with me--
she said, "You know, 
the poetry rush hours
will soon go quiet, will
slither soundlessly along
like traffic pythons."

Home now. I've plugged
in the poem to solar
power. It's sipping electrons,
blithely ignorant of
Daytona, of Monaco. 


hans ostrom 2021


Monday, June 26, 2017

Found Towns Lost

In daylight tiny
rural towns pretend
not to feel foolish
and depleted. There's
activity. An enthusiastic
conversation or two.
Errands and repairs.

At night streets
(such as they are)
become empty corridors
because people give
up, go inside, and
refuse to be towns-
people, too ridiculous.

Some shops weep,
others moan. If electricity
goes there at all, it
races through power
lines hoping not to be
used there. Before

dawn, animals file
through in a loose
parade.  Raccoons,
stray dogs, feral
cats, owls, and sometimes
a coyote. The stoic church
bell sweats rust, and
all the glory's in ornate
tombstones on a hill.


hans ostrom 2017