Monday, April 25, 2016

Our Days to Get Through

Everybody has a day to get through.
It may look like other people's days
to other people, but no: each person's
particulars make the day unique. Many
days I don't feel like I've known anyone,
and each time I feel that differently.


hans ostrom 2016

Song: Another Kind of Eden

It's another kind of Eden, I supposed.
What do you think: Should we remove our clothes?
We're on a rugged beach.
The seagulls strut and screech.
And in the sun your lovely person glows.




hans ostrom 2016

I Had My Eyes On You

I had my eyes on you. They were
those plastic ones from the novelty store.
I had them on your bare abdomen.
You were lying down (as

opposed to lying up) absorbing
sunheat. "I can't seem to take
my eyes off of you," I said.
Eyes closed, you said something

like "Huhnhmnm!" Which jolted
your stomach-muscles. My eyes
tumbled off onto what covers
Earth's crust. You put your eyes

on me--a warning glare. That's when
the devil showed up in the form
of the neighborhood's vicious
cat. I cast an eye at him--missed.

But he scampered. "Get you out
of here!"I yelled. "Same goes for you,"
you said to me. I gathered my eyes
and kept spinning in space on

this thing we call a planet.


hans ostrom 2016

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Less Than Petty

On Twitter literary opiners complained
about poems concerning petty crises.
More attention to broad social emergencies
is wanted. Makes sense. You know how
it goes sometimes, though. The admonishment
has an unintended effect sometimes, even
on poets who sympathize.  I blew my nose
into a red handkerchief, which I opened.
I looked at the snot.  Tapioca. The shape
looked like an obese number 1, with sarif.
The topic of this poem is less than petty.


hans ostrom 2016

Humans Can Kill Easily

Once they breach the membrane
of empathy and kill with calm technique,
an order of evil descends. Those well
removed who have deployed and justified
the killing puff up and stink like toads.
They speechify, murmur, count, and preen.
Dead bodies rot in sun and shade
as the day moves on. Killers rest,
their eyes dulled, their nerves in service
now to evil. They care for their weapons.
Humans can kill easily, Lord knows.


hans ostrom 2016

Monday, April 11, 2016

Feline Disappointment

I aspire
to earn one day
the scorn expressed
sometimes
by certain cats I know.


hans ostrom 2016

Thursday, March 31, 2016

Are We We? Oui

How are you enjoying the Pre-Apocalypse?
Other species through no fault of their
own get clocked by asteroids or Ice Ages.

We're just self-destructive. And we
think we have the right--don't we?--
to blow up everything. Wreck it.

Including the future. Who are we?
Are we we? Is there time. Is there time?


hans ostrom 2016

Caught Playing With Words

Are you playing with your words again?
Stop playing with your words! Put them down.
Oh, my God, they're all over your face, in
your hair,on the floor, the walls.

And stop laughing! It isn't funny.
You're much too old to be playing
with your words. You're never going
to amount to anything. What do you

mean what do I mean by "anything"?
People can amount to things!
But only if they stop playing
with their words at an early age.



hans ostrom 2016

Friday, March 18, 2016

Poets

One orders French wine and quizzes me about
who (what poets) I know and what I've read.
He's not quite insufferable.  He seems to think
he's hot shit. I start to get bored.

Another one sings a verse of a bluegrass song
on voice-mail--in tune, on pitch, with a
Carolina accent.  And another

edits a prestigious anthology which a
prestigious scholar skewers in a review,
and I don't care because their prestige
seems like a well preserved automobile
from 1936. Plus with the Internet,

anthologies don't matter, and
prestige is a penny stock.

Millions of others are just starting,
farting around with words.  It's a fine
thing to try to imagine: millions of poets
writing, clotting in cafes, tapping
on screens, falling asleep after
a swing-shift, wondering why White
people are so crazy, trying to get
another poet in bed.

Me: never prestigious, my obscurity
well seasoned, robust, full bodied.
The fascination with poetry stays
fresh.  The uncertainty about poetry's
place in society enlarges.

Anyway, it's one word. After another.


hans ostrom 2016

Language Charged With Meaning

Ezra Pound wanted to charge language
with meaning.  A misdemeanor, surely.

Who could testify against language?
They'd have to use language to try

and thereby make themselves
accessories after the testimony.

I say exonerate language from meaning.
Or convict but pardon it.  Commute

a few of its sentences. I mean, really.


hans ostrom 2016

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Novel and Poem

(ars poetica)

A novel is a thousand lovely cacti.
A poem is a shot of tequila.
Novel is the breathing of a marathon-runner.
Poem is the intake of breath felt when a woman
invites you to be nude with her.
Novel is a wheat field. Poem
is a vegetable patch.

A novel is a city.
A poem is hearing music or seeing
art or going broke or having sex or
falling in love or hating work or fearing
or being all alone or getting acclaim or
arrested in that city.

Novel is a search for spices.
Poem is cardamom.

A novel is a battle.
A poem is dog-tags hanging
on a war memorial.

Novel is someone you know well.
Poem is an intimate stranger.


hans ostrom 2016

Monday, March 7, 2016

Bible and Rifle

I saw a man
wrestling his Bible.
I saw a man
clutching his rifle.

It was one man.
One and the same.
And all confused
by hate and shame.


hans ostrom 2016

Quest Ionnaire

What is your gun rights?
Why is movie stars?
Who is bombing sites?
How is luxury cars?

When is bigots?
Who is frackings
How is forgets?
Where is hackings?

Why is hedge-funds?
What is gun rites?
Who is bombing raids?
When is megabytes?

How is racists?
Why is time-shares?
What is billionaires?
Who is malwares?

Consciousness

Consciousness floats in virtual air
like a weightless golden pear
the body imagines with its blood.

Consciousness is absolutely
absurd, partly because it
can reason. Not least of all,

intuition forms an illuminating
shadow. In closing, let us
pray, and let us note

that prayer is one way consciousness
expresses its hope that it's not
talking only to itself.


hans ostrom 2016

Patented New Sonnet Form

Pablo Parabola patented the ten-line
sonnet for a sleeker look, increased
speed, and tighter handling. Interviewed
at his apartment in the Pommes de Plume
hotel, Parabola said, "We;ll be in full

production before Fall." Critics
say he and his investors have grossly
overestimated the market for ten-line
sonnets, leaving aside the question of
demand for sonnets globally.


hans ostrom 2016

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Medusa's Morning

One morning Medusa put her hair up all
in snakes. What do you think? she asked
her lover. Looks great! he said. You didn't
even look! she said. I did so, said he,
and it looks terrific. At the same time,

your hair looks hungry, and what people
forget is that snakes stink.  He got out
of bed and asked Medusa what she thought
of the red hawk he'd attached to his groin.

She said, You're scaring my hair.

hans ostrom 2016

Monday, February 22, 2016

However

"However."  Strange word. Gets away
with looking ordinary. How. Ever.

One part has to do with in what manner;
the other part, with time. However
makes as much sense as Wellsoon.
"Wellsoon, we did find the broth too salty."

However, "however" is as reliable
as a steel pry-bar and never wears out.
It leverages a turn
of direction in writing, speech, and thought.
Whatever it means, it functions
and does so more slowly than but.

In the U.S., however has enjoyed
a long friendship with the semicolon;
however, that probably doesn't
interest you.


hans ostrom 2016

Clusterville

I'm living out in Clusterville. Out here
we cluster up the huts and houses, apartmental
lego-heaps, and all the rest. The clustering
seems fine. I have a job at Clusterworks.

The Clusterwork motto is
"Trust Your Clustering to Us!"
We've been trained never to omit
the exclamation point.

Believe it or not, my wife Clemithia
is a direct descendant of one
of Clusterville's founders--
Alchemia von Kluster,

who was German by birth,
Belgian by culture. A grim,
exacting gourmand, so they
say. Aggressive pacifist.

Clemithia takes after her.
I would call my spouse
an imposing figure.
You would, too.

Again by marriage I'm related to
Colonel Jean von Kluster,
who's first and last stand
occurred just outside Clusterville:
he sank his savings into
a failed jousting tournament.

Look,I'm no deep thinker, no
existentialist, anarchist,
or pub philosopher. I work in
Clusterville because that's what I do.
I like self-evident just fine.

Other people call the shots
and legions more (the sad cases)
believe they have control.

There are clusters of people,
places, and things in Clusterville.
That is all you really need to know,
amen. Come to Clusterville.
Call it home. Stay.


hans ostrom 2016

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Having a Word with It

I'm never quite sure of who you are,
depression. I ought to hate you. I don't.

It's like you're some kind of gray-garbed
circuit judge. You ride into town, glower
down at me, then summon me to a cold

brown room where we sit silently.
You like it fine. I start to stare

into a pit I've hallucinated.
Eventually you leave. Or seem to.
When they finally sort out all
the brain science, your current name,

depression, will seem as quaint
as a Model T. Anyway, . . .


hans ostrom 2016

Friday, February 5, 2016

Black's Beach

(the clothing-optional beach near San Diego)

The heavy sand is as black as the stuff
that abides with gold in the Sierra.

Black-suited surfers march
along the beach in martial service
to the obsession. A nude

woman enacts yoga poses,
and I wonder why they never
offered that kind of thing
in high school physical education.
A solid replacement for
the badminton unit.

I sit naked on a purple towel
laid out on a washed-up wooden pallet.
There are other old washed-up
hippies (not the most accurate word,
but it will do) who dot the beach
in stupendous sunshine and fresh air.
Erosion-scarred brown bluffs rise above us.

I suppose we're absently wondering
where all the parties went to.
Answer: nowhere.  They just go on
without us. Somewhere we got

separated from our pods and
ended up on this beach.

It's not a big gulp of freedom.
Only a sip or two. Now a brown
young woman wades out into surf,
presents her body to the ocean,
dips her hands into the water
as if it were cool liquid silver.

She brings her hands to her face.
She runs her fingers through her hair.
I lie back like an old sea lion
and close my eyes.


hans ostrom 2016