Monday, September 24, 2012

Frustration Station


At Frustration Station, crates
of bad karma get off-loaded,
vats of bile sit in storage, and
tickets turn to paste.  Conductors
have called a halt. Engineers
weep, and tunnels belch hot wind.
Departures and arrivals melt
into one immobile blob.  Turnstiles
turn into empty gun-barrels aimed
at one another. Vermin gnaw
wires of  ambition.  Only the fiddler
playing for oily coins is happy.
These faces, these faces, these
faces twist toward scream.  


Hans Ostrom, 2012

"A Chromatic Passing-Note," by Kingsley Amis

The Commonplace Sage

The sage on the mountain's a commonplace
sage. He's suspicious of gurus. He invites
you to spend only what you have, buy
no more than you need.  The commonplace

sage tells poets they're only as good
as their latest poem. A laurel's just
a shrub. The sage says if you want
to argue politics, debate yourself.

Sage suggests you re-familiarize
yourself with arithmetic, popular
music, and the software known
as Crap Detector 2.0.  Thinks

you might want to find the good
sense you misplaced when you
were a big deal there for a while.
This common sage sings a tune

or two, and wow: here comes a
herd of memories across a neon
pasture, and the needed card
floats up on the river, and

Frank Zappa clowns around in
heaven with Steve Allen's toupé.


Hans Ostrom, 2012

People Who Go Fishing

We sit. We stand. We walk
and wade and float and wait.
We work with things
from a diminutive realm:

string, bits of cloth, feathers,
miniature coins and jewelry,
lead pearls, worms, tiny eggs,
eyelets, small wheels, thin sticks.

Like psychologists, geologists,
and those obsessed with Hell,
we're obsessed with a submerged
dominion, about which we invent
myths, toward which we harbor
resentments, and into which
we cast gleaming desires.
We are deceivers of water-creatures.
We are lords of the sky-world.

We do not travel water to get somewhere.
To us, Odysseus was an abject fool.
Our world is lyric, not epic.  Ahab
was a reckless tourist. Jonah was bait.
And yes, we know whales aren't fish,
so be quiet.  Ssshhh! Did you hear that?
Did you feel that? We live for small
signs of animated resistance, for
the life on the line.  No, it is not
time to go. There is plenty of light left.


Hans Ostrom, 2012

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Hiram Goes to Cafe Fear

(another in a series of "Hiram" poems)



Hiram Goes To Café Fear


Hiram thinks, “Here I am sitting inside
my shirt, shoes, and trousers, on a chair
at a table in a café.  I am afraid
of dying.  Also of nothing.  I tell
a waitress what I want for lunch.
She brings it.  I eat it, holding off
fear for a while.  I don’t know
who or why I am.  I am aware
of sitting, afraid, inside my clothes
and body.  This is me, I think. 
So this is me and this my fear.”


Hans Ostrom, 2012


Spiders' Migration

(re-posting a seasonal poem)


Spiders' Migration



Northern Hemisphere, September: spiders
come inside.  They slip through seams
to here, where summer seems to them
to spend the winter.  Their digits tap out
code on hardwood floors.  They rappel
from ceilings on out-spooled filaments
of mucous, measuring the place.  Sometimes
they stay just still.  Paused.  Poised.

It’s not as if spiders wait for us
to watch them, or even as if they
wait.  Rather, octavian motion
is so easy, syncopated, and several
that stillness surely exhilarates spiders
just arriving from the Northern Hemisphere.
It’s time for us to enter equal days and
equal nights, to pluck the filament between
fear of and fascination with spiders
moving in.


Hans Ostrom, 2012

Friday, September 21, 2012

This Happens To Be It

All right, thought Hiram,
this happens to be it--
what is real. I am
walking home on a sidewalk,
and I am drunk,
and I am passing by
a twenty-foot boat
that is situated
between the sidewalk
and someone's yard,
and sophisticated engines
driving cars
are passing me,
and I look at my distorted
shadow exactly
as I did when I was seven
years old: it is
that elongated,
legs-go-forever
shadow.  And I am:
so what? And I
am walking home,
knowing the way,
what is home (?),
what is the way (?),
is this what is (?),
and I must go on
as if this is what is,
and I keep walking.


Hans Ostrom, 2012

Saloon Statment

You know (she said),
it's very important
to remember
the difference between
getting crazy
and
just being
a little
bit
drunk,
okay?



Hans Ostrom, 2012

A Poet's Real Fear

There is
so much time to say
something and
so little
to say.


Hans Ostrom, 2012

"Proof," by Brendan Kennelly

Poem: Not Safe For Work?

Not Safe For Work?

I'll tell you what's
not safe for work,
says the waitress dead
on her feet;
the roofer in 104 degree
heat; the
truck driver, fire
fighter, soldier,
foundry worker,
heat-vent installer.

I'll tell you what's
not safe
for work, says
the warehouse-worker, the
unveiled woman, the
veiled woman, oil-
driller, welder,
seamstress, factory-
worker. What's

not safe for work is
work.


Hans Ostrom, 2012

Monday, September 17, 2012

"Swift Month," by Denise Levertov

Commissioned Sonnet

Going through old computer-files and -documents, I found a sonnet I'd written that had been commissioned.  Someone from the Politics and Government Department where I teach (U. of Puget Sound) had asked me to write a poem to be read at their departmental graduation-gathering.  This was in 2008.

About all I can say for the sonnet is that it is worth at least what they paid me for it, nothing.

I thought a sonnet--or some traditional form--was appropriate for the occasion. Every so often, I like to write a "commissioned" thing.  It's an interesting challenge.

Commencement Bay is the name of the harbor next to Tacoma.


Sonnet: To Graduating Seniors in Politics and Government



We’ve been the captains of your classes here,
The admirals of your splendid senior theses.
Today we are mere ensigns of good cheer
As you depart these arches, bricks, and trees.

Your learning is your cargo. Politics
And Government’s the dock from which you sail.
The world out there is one we hope you’ll fix.
May warm and fairly traded winds prevail.

Now, after several years at Puget Sound,
You’ll voyage from your own Commencement Bay
To ports where possibilities abound.
With pride we raise a toast to you and say:

In governing your lives, be politic
And always vote for wisdom—that’s the trick.


Hans Ostrom, 2008, 2012

Friday, September 14, 2012

It Means to You

It means to you, whatever
you're thinking now
as you sit in a chair, in
a seat, on a bench, looking
at the screen in your
hand, on your lap, on
your desk, on a wall.

It means to you, what
you're thinking
of the noise around you, of
your anxiety, of this
indescribable warren
of ideas, memories, neurons
firing, appetites, instincts--
all of it in its all-at-onceness:
mind.

It means to you, the taste
in your moth of coffee or beer or food
or smoke or your own mouth,
or someone else's. There's
the ache in one place, resentment

in another, in nerves and brain.
Are the unsatisfactions worse
than the dissatisfactions? Are
you comfortable enough
but still bored, angry, afraid,
frustrated? Are you looking
at someone now? It means

to you, it is meaning to you,
and you have been meaning, too.


Hans Ostrom, 2012

To Aging Friends

Oh, my aging friends,
what illnesses and
infirmities await us?

We hope to sail
along indefinitely
in these bodies.

We know we'll
be intercepted
and boarded by pirates.

The rigging creaks.
Boat-loads of young
women pass.

At best, they ignore
us, at worst laugh
at our sad crafts.

The aging are
a patient armada sailing
under a tie-dyed flag.

Ah, my aging friends,
let's drink wine in moonlight
on this our rolling deck.


Hans Ostrom, 2012

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

A Few Moments in the Comparisonator

Her eyes were as blue as not
sky or sea but, but, uh--
cornflowers.

The moon looked like not
cheese, a face, a balloon, but
a flashlight shined
on
varicose veins.

My love for you is stronger
than my breath
after I've eaten
raw onions and Limburger
cheese.  What? You don't
eat raw onions or
Limburger cheese?

A sadness enveloped me.
Like an envelope. Right?

When you take off your
clothes, baby, I don't
think about comparisons.


Hans Ostrom, 2012

Monday, September 10, 2012

Consciousness, This Space

This customary space, consciousness (as you hear
the hiss of evening traffic): a pliable, warped
sphere with membrane boundaries. Sometimes

the activity called thinking permeates
the membrane. And there you are,
situated in a non-view. 

Not so much detached as unbounded.
You see a gleam for a while without
knowing or naming it; it isn't gleam.

....Chrome....toaster....fender...glass...?
Utterly receptive perception . . .

You settle into out-settledness.

Sounds. Blurs.  What is there
enwraps you loosely like
the lightest fabric. There's

the merest hint of, well,
forever (as you hear the
hiss . . .)


Hans Ostrom, 2012

Sunday, September 9, 2012

What My Job Is

Oh, I know what Management
thinks my job is, don't worry. It's
to help those to whom they
report report that a profit
was made. My family and truth
to tell my friends, and me too,
we think my job is to keep
my job. Beyond that, no one
cares about my work, not
even the ones who send me
bills.  Because computers
and some people trying to
keep their jobs send me
the bills, which, if I don't
pay--well, Management there
manages a legal department.

When I'm on the job, I
do my work.  Something
I don't tell anyone is this: I
always do something to
hang on to a piece of myself.
What that is varies. Sometimes
people see me doing that kind of
thing, a self-saving thing, and
I'm not giving examples. Anyway,
I see people at the place
looking at me, trying to figure
why I did that or said this.
That kind of thing, that's
not in the job-description.


Hans Ostrom, 2012

All Work and No Play at a Cafe

(based on found language)



All Work and No Play at a Cafe


Damn, I partied last light. Hell
yes I did. What's the saying?
All work and no play makes
Jack a--uh--a--a whatever.
Is that my latte?


Hans Ostrom, 2012

Friday, September 7, 2012

Perfect Is Over-rated

(riff on language, Italicized,  found on Tumblr)


Perfect is Over-rated

I'm not perfect, and I don't want
to be. Because being perfect
is so over-rated.  I mean,
I'd actually rank imperfection
above perfection.  For one

thing, perfection doesn't exist.
Read that old fart, Plato.  You
can't get to Ideal from here,
so it's as bad as nothing.

Plus everybody I know
who's supposedly perfect
turns out to be, you know,
killers, rapists, head-cases,
cutters, pukers, yellers.
Dangerous or sad. 
Less than optimal, I'm thinking.

So, yeah, I wouldn't put
perfect on my fantasy team.


Hans Ostrom, 2012

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

On Deciding Not to Become Wealthy

The evidence suggests getting rich
was not one of my priorities.
I studied literature and took up
writing poetry: any questions?

Also, I've always worked. Rather
late in the game, I noticed most
rich people don't work a lot.
Or at all.

Way back in the ago-era,
I ran my own weed- and grass-
cutting business, age 15.

Since then: different wage-jobs--
labor at a gravel-plant, hod-
carrying, washing pots,
writing sports articles, pounding
nails, digging trenches,
reading standardized tests.

Also a salaried job. Professor.
I see now that this was the path
for me.  I think if I were rich, I'd
be very nervous, less generous,
and much more of a fuck-up
than I already have been.

That's my report.



Hans Ostrom, 2012

Poem: A List of Parts

In this package
you will find the
following parts
for the poem
you'll assemble.

Please match the
parts to this list
before you begin
assembly. 

1. Sounds
2. Letters [26]
3. Words  [75--you may
order more]
4. Marks (punctuation)
5. Pictures in the mind
[not included but implied]
6. Space
7. Sample title
8. Sample beginning [2]
9. Sample ending [2]
10. Stanza-templates [6--you
may order more]



Hans Ostrom, 2012

The Last Automobile

Hear that sound?
That's the motor
of the last car
to go over the cliff.

Now the authorities
will roll up highways
and store them in a
desert like old
spools of thread.

Wild horses will
look down on them
from synthetic, pastured
plateaus above.


Hans Ostrom, 2012

Monday, September 3, 2012

Political Arguments

Nobody knows what they're talking about.
Or, they know what they're talking 
about only because they made it up.

Judging from the noise and heat,
you might think these people
really believe they affect outcomes.

You might even think
the politicians to whom they're
loyal are loyal to them!

These people arguing
are like watchdogs barking
and growling, guarding

a piece of turf no one sees.
Political arguments
are imaginative enterprises. 


--Hans Ostrom, 2012

Bed Linens

Sand from a beach-woman's feet,
crumbs from something I ate,
books, pens, notebooks, socks--

none of such stuff in bed
ever bothered me. Still:
fresh sheets, especially
when a person's gripped
by flu--celestial comfort.

There's something mournful
and small--not rising to the level
of tragedy--about a stripped bed.

It's as if Sleep up and quit
that room and moved on
to another town.

--Hans Ostrom, 2012