Showing posts with label scorpions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label scorpions. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

I Demand to Know

A dragonfly, wearing standard-issue
lead goggles, downshifts its wings,
which when still look like foggy
cracked windows. Resting,

this dragonfly pulses. Its curved
blue tail befriended a scorpion
once during a vacation in Mexico.

I demand to know
what this dragonfly thinks.


hans ostrom 2016

Thursday, October 9, 2008

I Liked Those Days










[pictured: a potato bug]









Good Ground



I liked those days when I kept my gaze
close to the ground, although I'm sorry
about that sound I repeated in line one.
I saw black beetles, which gave off an
awful stench, and I saw potato-bugs,
large, delicate, decorated, slow--
almost like Art Deco. Yes, I saw
salamanders, those wee amphibians,
amost too gentle for Earth, connoisseurs
of shadow. Sight of scorpions and
black-widow spiders injected me
with terrible lore and jolts of adrenalin.
I saw ants hauling dead moths like
stiff canvas sails, and I watched ant-lions
waiting for prey to slip down the side
of the terrible sandy funnel. I read
Earth closely. It's the best book ever,
after all, especially when you're a kid,
even if you're a kid who likes to read.
I sneaked up on the frog pond and watched
frogs copulate, all of them at once, and
what a cacaphony! Later I saw the
tadpoles, which grew legs--freakier
than any horror movie Hollywood
had to offer the National Broadcasting
Company. I learned to stand tall and notice
humans almost exclusively. This is known
as "joining society" or "growing up" or
whatever term you prefer. It's one of
those necessary things. Life may be
better spent with one's nose close to
soil and stone, eyeballing bugs and
all that stuff. No, I don't mean becoming
a "naturalist." That would ruin everything.
This isn't nostalgia. It's just preference.
Spiders, insects, worms, amphibians,
reptiles, and birds delivered the goods
curiosity sent for from the mail-order
catalogue, is all I'm saying. These
creatures did some weird, interesting
shit, just as a part of their ordinary
day, okay? I'm an adult now, no
major complaints today, but I do
wish for children that they may live
near interesting ground and be
allowed to read it if they want to.



Hans Ostrom Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom

Sunday, August 24, 2008

The Scorpion King II


We subscribe to cable television, and so we have access to something like 31,238 channels. However, we tend to be interested in only about 6 of them, two or three that run different iterations and re-runs of Law and Order, a couple of so-called "news channels," and channels that give us access to BBC news, programs, and movies. I also like to watch C-Span, the fundamentalist Christian "network," the Weather Channel, and other anomalies.

On one of these selected channels, I saw an advertisement for the DVD of a movie called Scorpion King II. I haven't seen Scorpion King [I], but I think it may have been produced by the unusual people who are in charge of professional-wrestling-entertainment.

I've seen only a couple scorpions in my life, so I'm no expert, but I don't think scorpions are ruled by a monarchy. The scorpions I met seemed like they would rebel against the very idea of a hereditary monarchy, in fact.

However, I gather the scorpion monarchy has not been in place for a long time, as it is now ruled only by its second King. Some monarchies consolidate power via marriage, so maybe the Scorpion King will marry the Princess of Spiders or Lady Bug, who will then become the Scorpion Queen.

Interestingly, I saw no scorpions in the advertisement for The Scorpion King II. Most of the images seemed to be of young body-builders with lubricated upper bodies. They seem to be running and carrying swords from the studio's collection of swords.

The language such advertisements borrow from alleged reviews of the product being offered is a bit like exhausted poetry. For example, the quotations mentioned in this advertisement included the following: "Non-stop action!" "Bone-crushing excitement!"

I like movies in which the action stops occasionally. I like it when people stop chasing each other or hacking off limbs, sit down, and have a conversation. Also, at some point, the action in all movies needs to stop after an hour or two, don't you think? At some point, the credits have to run. As for bone-crushing excitement, I am ambivalent, at best. I can't envisage liking excitement that would result in the crushing of bones.

I don't think I'm going to rent or purchase the DVD for The Scorpion King II. If there is a so-called "Nature" show--on a Public Broadcasting channel--that focuses on scorpions, I am likely to watch it for a while, however.