Tuesday, February 21, 2012

White Silence

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White Silence

Emily, I love you, but some
truths can't be told slant.
This country's never made
right what it did and does
to Black folks. On that score,
its soul is rotten and always
will be until it makes things
right. Its edifices will forever
be without foundation until
it makes things right.

Emily, more White folks
need to break this White silence,
which covers the U.S. like
Antarctic ice. It is White folks
who must insist at last
that this nation face itself
at what it did, and what it does.

Copyright 2012

"Rattlesnake," by Brewster Ghiselin

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Fat Man on the Radio

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Fat Man on the Radio

There's a fat man on the radio
who thinks he knows it all.
My truck is stuck out on I-5.
I'd settle for a crawl.

I have to get this load to Texas
or else I won't get paid.
The blowhard on the radio--
he won't come to my aid.

Fat man on the radio,
jerking people's chains.
The fat man: hell, he just
pretends to know our pains.

Copyright 2012 Hans Ostrom

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

"Sleep," by Langston Hughes

see so many just

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see so many just

i see so many just
hanging on, or not,
staggering in wind
without a coat (as
TV heads mock
people-just-getting-
by); keeping upright
in a job while worrying,
weary, ill, afraid to miss
a shift, target, quota, goal.
see so many

ground down--
and the grinders:
well ensconced with
cosmetic surgery,
lawyers, gates, and
lies. see so many:

cubes and cubes of
housing, broken street
after broken street, &
slashed by alleys. something's
coming. don't know what.
maybe just more of
same. maybe reckoning--
a gray wind chasing
indifference and evil
across a plain full
of smoldering phones
and melted ear-buds.

see something staggering
in the cold, walking past
an empty police cruiser,
strolling toward a swarming
crowd, sound of cockroach-
scuttle coming out of
speakers. and a wailing.


Copyright 2012 Hans Ostrom

Friday, February 10, 2012

"Youth and Beauty," by Al Akhtal

New Novel About a Bizarre Plague

So I finally published my most recent novel via Kindle. It is called WITHOUT ONE, and it concerns a bizarre epidemic that strikes in the near future and that hits men where they live--but otherwise let's them live.  One tag-line, so to speak, is "Something is happening to men; their penises are falling off."

Mostly droll satire, I'd say, with some pathos and comedy.  The ensemble-cast includes first sufferers, researchers, doctors, media-folk, conspiracy-theorists, and of course politicians, including the POTUS.

The disease is soon known as RAPIDS--Rapid Penile Degeneration Syndrome.

My favorite anecdote from my adventures in trying to find an agent for the book: A male agent responded almost immediately to the email query and wrote, "I couldn't possibly represent this book because I have a fear of castration."  Which was funny.  And which, to me, suggested the book might have some appeal.  Technically, the disease doesn't castrate, but I got his drift.  I think I apologized for scaring him, too.

Anyway, if you're not scared, and in the unlikely event you have time to read, sigh, another novel, and you like somewhat bizarre fiction, here is a link:


Without One

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Anti-Epic

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Anti-Epic


Here's a thought: stay home.
Quell grandiose ideas.
Let understanding invade you.

Consider all those people
and animals you won't kill.
Admit that whatever you

would seek doesn't exist--
revenge; a cup; glory.
Construct manageable

fantasies. You're an organism
that eats and sleeps. A deeper epic
lies in being nothing special.


Copyright 2012 Hans Ostrom

Dog Outside a Bar

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Dog Outside a Bar


Memory is loyalty
to something not there.
I sit outside the past
like a dog outside

a bar, and what
I'm waiting for went
out the back door
hours ago. I furrow

my brow and alert
my ears and eyes.
And I remember.
The future wants

to take me for a
walk. It hooks
a leash to my collar.
And here we go.


Copyright 2012 Hans Ostrom

Monday, January 30, 2012

And On Forever

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And On Forever


A brisk wind blowing
across a high mountain
meadow continues
after I imagine it, after
I die. It goes on and on
forever in that place.


Copyright 2012

Ghosts Are Comfortable

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Ghosts Are Comfortable


When ghosts want to take a break
from ghosting, they sometimes visit
my place. They know I won't
expect anything from them--

not fright, news, melodramatic
Hamlet-crap, or broken dishes.

To be a ghost is to be
a permanent yearning.
It takes a lot of energy.
I've always understood
that about ghosts--
how hard they work.


Copyright 2012 Hans Ostrom

Friday, January 27, 2012

Fact and Miracle

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Fact and Miracle

The sun stays on
all the time. What
is the difference
between a fact
and a miracle?

I wonder how many
people around
this world tonight are
looking for proof of something.

If you are reading
this, then you are
alive, and that is
excellent news. What's
the difference between
a fact and a miracle?


Copyright 2012 Hans Ostrom

"Changed," by Henry Wadworth Longfellow

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Don't Know, Do Know

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Don't Know, Do Know

i don't know why. i
do know why. i do,
i don't, know why.

why, no, i don't
know why. i know
why i don't know

why and don't
know why
i know. i don't,

i do, and i
don't know how
it is for you.


Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom

Lemon Harangue

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Lemon Harangue

hey, it's hard to do
anything. yeah, but
you have to try. hell,
we all start out as

squirming blobs of
flesh and then
get push-pushed
to join reality.

later we get
volunteered to
join this mess,
society. with

a system like
this, who needs
chaos? for
today, stop

haranguing
yourself, although
it's a good word,
harangue.

do what you can,
if you can, and
know that doing
anything is hard.


Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom

Dramatic Noise

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Dramatic Noise

in the next motel
room, someone's
talking, with volume,
on a telephone.

words get stripped
of their wordness
as they pass through
stuccoed sheet rock.

so what i
hear sounds like
the intense language
of a huge insect

that is related
to a small
electric drill.
it's fascinating.

there's drama
in this noise.
hearing the words
would diminish

that. the noise can
be an argument
about anything.
i'm sad when

the sound stops
and the walls
of the room
i am in begin

to advance on
me, flashing their badges
of splendid, cheap
mass-produced art.


Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom

Sydney Greenstreet's Younger Days

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Sydney Greenstreet's Younger Days


today i heard
a woman say
of sydney greenstreet:

"in his younger days,
he was probably
light on his feet."

Link: "The Sydney Greenstreet Blues," by Richard Brautigan


poem copyright Hans Ostrom 2011

Wood on Water

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Wood on Water

i now set this out
on waters of
Electronic Ocean

like a small
piece of wood--
white pine

i don't know
where it will go
except anywhere

it's particular
now--of particles
diffused

it could end up
being scanned by
an entity in

another galaxy,
a disappointed
decoder


Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Far Away and Above

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Far Away and Above

If you don't have any
expectations, everything's
a surprise, and the crowd
of disappointments gets
thinned considerably.

So I'm using a day
off as a day off
from expectation.

Just breathing
is an accomplishment--
vital, in fact.

Far away and above,
a light airplane
buzzes in the
ear of the sky.
I hadn't
expected that.


Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom

"Intellect," by Ralph Waldo Emerson