Showing posts with label identity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label identity. Show all posts

Friday, September 1, 2023

Nose to the Glass

Oh, the stories you tell yourself
about yourself. Constantly.
Certain scenes keep coming around
like mail delivery. You recall bad
behavior. It begs at once for
regrets and excuses, which,
combined like soda and vinegar,
merely fizz. You invent arcs

in your life, heroic ups and downs.
You list alleged achievements.
You indict, forgive, forget, fudge,
and, exhausted, give in to fatalism.

You keep this silly sense of Self
afloat like a raft on a slow river.
No, it's more like Self's just a
habit, like a mannequin in a
window you walk by compulsively
or stare at, nose to the glass.

hans ostrom

Monday, December 11, 2017

I Am a Native of Earth

You tell me I seem as if
I'm not from Earth. You
tell me I am an alien
and wish to see my documents.
(I have so many documents--
please specify.)

Sadly for you, certain
verified claims of physics
and biology confirm
my native status.

Yes, that's right, you
may infer that we are all,
that they who lived and
shall live are all, Earth Natives.

Our segregations, degradations,
and depravities seem
to spring from a different premise,
one I can see you share--
you with that supreme look
of deranged identity in your eyes.



hans ostrom 2017

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

They Have Their There, We Have Our Here

Back there they speak of out here.
Out here we speak of going
back there. That doesn't mean we
go. Being from out here, we will
never be from back there or welcome.
Even if we go back there, here
will hold us still.  They will always
see the out in us and the here
in how we do things.  And they will
always want everyone everywhere,
including us out here, to agree
that back there is the best. Out here
we don't see things that way.



hans ostrom 2017