Cold April

unfriendly sky
new garden leaves shiver
the crows flap hard against the wind


hans ostrom 2018

American Rust

White Supremacy is like rust.
It never stops devouring
American structures.
It never gets eradicated.


hans ostrom 2018

Saint Anonymous

I pray to Saint Anonymous,
a martyr without publicity.

Anon's the patron saint
of the perplexed, who never

quite manage to move past
confusion to reach rudimentary

theological questions, let alone
answers. When I pray to St.

Anonymous, I imagine a mildly
fretful face staring at me,

suggesting neither comfort nor
salvation but not-so-merely

sympathy, which is the most
of what's available given

the circumstances in which we
the perplexed find ourselves.


hans ostrom 2018

More Lies

Some more lies, then:
today in a fabricated storm,
clothes fell from the sky.
The tiniest of birds flew
through my eye into my
brain, which dreams of
the bird every night now
in jail: I am. I have been
arrested for false imaginings.
I use state-invoiced spoons
to play the bars like a xylophone
hoping someone will answer.


hans ostrom 2018

The Letter L Gathers Intelligence

Xylophone, chlorophyll--
tones of green tunes.
Isopropyl, pteradactyl,
prophylactic: in each
of such words, the letter

L functions as a secret
agent. Yes, we found polygamous
platypus written on plain
papyrus but alas the key

to the code evaporated
long long ago.




hans ostrom 2018

Pope Pourri

pontiff, pope, papa.
paparazzi photograffiti vatican
man. Point If, on the coast of doubt,
where lives holy fatherson's

ghost. what toppings does
the top-of-the-Church
like on his pope-pizza?
geez, a woman really

ought to be pope soon,
breaking the arthritic
seal on a new era
that can breathe, a boon.

and let priests have
consensual sex if they
want to and even the pontiff too
if he-she has such a friend, or two.

time to re-sort-out which credos
are credibly from an above
and which are human edicts from
let's face it obsolete cultures.


hans ostrom 2018

Solitary Book

She's a solitary book. She
wants a shelf all to herself.

She's well printed inside
and bound with a durable,

beautiful cover. She's full
of ideas, pathos, and humor.

Sometimes she invites me in.
There it is a local heaven.

From her name and table
of contents through to the

colophon, back and forth
I go along innumerable paths,

knowing her story in some
of its endless ways. It's never

long before she sends me away.
She likes a shelf all to herself

and is most comfortable when
closed.



hans ostrom 2018

sierra nevada

sierra nevada see
air over nevada
serrated novena
snow sloughed redoubt

quartz veins in diorite
and granite, vanity
goes viral for gold
blast rock haul ore

or give up. for it is
written it shall be
hidden, gold generally
hides in specific gravity

gravely. washo and maidu
watched euro-waves crash
flash in the pans & rockers
sheer face of bluffs onlooked


hans ostrom 2018

culinary difficulty

culinary difficulty
your goose is cooked
you're all shook up
a chafed chef

the sou chef
vouchsafed for you,
said you can dish it out
after you bake it

par course par boil char
boil loyal to butter
salt and cream, utter
and scream, slow-

roast a daydream
of opening your own
someday restaurant
restore rant, saucy savant


hans ostrom 2018

white folks crazy

white folks crazy
lazily leaning
on a rotten post--
souperiority

one may try
to divest his
her their whiteness--
not so fast, say

the structures
holding one.
ruptures of these
structures

i do perceive--
but: too few,
too narrow.
it is very, very

late: 1619-2018,
and a White Supremacist
in the White House.
of course even

1620 was very late--
it should have stopped
then, should not have
started, white folks crazy


hans ostrom 2018

Five-Syllable Aria

For him, opera is a world
where people converse
in shrieks, shouts, cries, and
wails. (Too much like his family.)

Even an operatic comedy
sounds like catastrophe to him.

Right away, the first notes,
opera is too much for him.
Instantly it exhausts him.
Defeated, he sleeps until

a sweet whisper in his ear
sings, "It's over. Let's go."
The five-syllable aria
transports his would.


hans ostrom 2018

And the Frogs Croaked "Affidavit"

I think an affidavit should be something
different from a legal statement. An affidavit
should be a mythical bird or a frenetic folk dance.
Or perhaps a ritual response in a liturgy.
(Affidavit, affidavit, said the assembled, gravely.)

I was listening to some frogs last night, The
dear frogs, moist creatures enamored of moonlight.
They just kept croaking affidavit, loud and crisp,
with syncopation borrowed from another aural plane.
The amphibious chant mesmerized me. Down

the years it has done that, for I have listened to frogs
my whole life, and I will sign a statement to that effect.


hans ostrom 2018