Donald Trump is Who America Is

From Time to Time

The phrase "from time to time"

makes my mind see stepping stones

set wide-apart. Circles of light

on stages. Old pulpy catalogues

and sports newsprint pages,

imploded miners' shacks, 

and burial mounds, retired profs

(strangers now on what they'd thought

of as "their" campuses) taking

hard steps into a library. "From

time to time" makes me sad,

forlorn, and blue--but glad

to be alive today though feeling still

a chill on back and shoulders as Earth

spins me toward my personal last time. 

hans ostrom 2024

Without Shadow

My shadow left me for a day.

It joined a general shade.
In sun I looked down on the walk
In vain to find a silouette made.

Without my shadow, I felt sad
And wondered did I still exist?
Did light sail through my body now?
Was I insubstantial as a mist?

My shadow, it returned at last
And soldered itself to me.
My shadow proves my substance, yes--
It places and displaces--see?

hans ostrom 2024

Northern Hemispheric November

Oh, November--

my bête noire,
cabinet of cold rain,
sinister capitan of snow,
avant garde of Winter,
tree-stripper, soil-sealer,
gloom-injector, glum puritan.

Oh, November, neither
enemy nor friend, just a
doom-inducer, a sour neighbor,
a moldy blanket, a day-cutter,
a sun-shrouder: you
are a head-cold kind of month.

hans ostrom 2024

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"We cannot elect this man as president"

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"To Put One Brick Upon Another," by Philip Larkin

"The Composer," by W.H. Auden

"The Waning Moon," by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Lead the Way

Take my hand, draw

me to your warmth.
Show me what you
want me to want.
Unconfuse me. Simplify,
eye to eye. I'm so tired
of being supposed to know.

So show what you know
I want, what you want.
Clearly you know. You know
clearly. Into your warmth I go--
a room, a place, a bed, a world,
a dream with walls and pillows,
perfume, talk, and linen. So
take my hand.

hans ostrom 2024

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