"True Love," by Waring Cuney

"Fugue," by Weldon Kees

This Is Your Uncle Vinton

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This Is Your Uncle Vinton


This is your Uncle Vinton calling:
You say you don't have an Uncle
Vinton, and you close the call.

Actually you do have an Uncle
Vinton. He's a secret, me. I was
going to mention a few other things

you may not know. But that's all right.
You'll be fine not knowing them, me.
You may recall in quiet moments

the calm assurance of my voice when
I said, This is your Uncle Vinton calling.
Our disconnection will be our only connection.

--Unless of course you call me some night
and say This is your niece, Verona, calling,
and I say, "I don't have a niece named Verona."


Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom

Gray Boulder

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I Say That Gray Boulder


I say that gray boulder will always be
there, knowing it will be gone--but long
after I am no longer. I say it because
I need at least a stone to stay where
it was, where it is in my mind,

which needs  rock to be more
than memory. Mind wearies of its
memories, its common stock. That
gray boulder's under cedars.

I sat on it, age six, and experienced
the expansive fluidity of sight, thought,
light, impulse, and sensation all children
know but don't know they will lose.
I say "that gray boulder," and I know.


Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom

"Old Mary," by Gwendolyn Brooks

Hot Chocolate - You Sexy Thing (1975) HD

Rush Hour Poem

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Rush, Our

Convenience, steel, and efficiency
in automobilian form get reduced
to viscous troughs of traffic, giving
us time to work on futility, self-loathing,
and heart-attacks. Someone named it

the Rush Hour. It's when rushing ceases,
and it lasts several hours; otherwise,
it's a great name. The oligarchs prefer
that we travel this way, stopped

in vehicles built to go, sitting in a
holding-cell atop rubber tires and
with payments due. It's a great system.
It really is. And so sometimes we

lean on the horn or shout at the
windshield, our impotent spit
flying, to express sad rage or
to misbehave farcically.


Copyright 2011

"Thaw," by Edward Thomas

"The Argument of His Book," by Robert Herrick

"Winter" by William Shakespeare

"Revolution," by A.E. Housman

Class of 55 - This Train (1977 Elvis dedication)

Tennessee Homecoming Class of 55