And Hope for the Best

okay, I never starved

and I was white not black

in America

but I've been alarmed

ever since I learned

life ends with death.

then came pageants

of cruelty,

the always prospect

of atomic 

annihilation, and

white kids groomed

by their stupid

parents to hate black

kids--for starters;

a head-on collision

with environmental

doom, sadists

in the workplace.

okay, I've had it good--

for starters; but

still, no wonder

I'm jumpy, reclusive,

bookish, and not

just tired but

existentially weary;

I'm talking old

dog tired. no bombs,

missiles, store

massacres, floods,

fires, new plagues,

attacks on black friends

locally today, so

okay, call it good,

do something for someone,

then grab a nap

and hope for the best

and hope for the best

and hope for the best.

hans ostrom

Strange Feeling

(after listening to Duke Ellington's

"Strange Feeling")

Half the people

who ever insulted

me are dead.

That makes me

feel strange for ever

caring what they said.

hans ostrom 2021

Short Ideas

 

at work she endured

petty tyrants with

pinched faces. back

home, her young son

said, "Walt Disney had a
lot of short ideas."

She laughed and images
of those faces
surely faded.

hans ostrom 2021

The Skipper

on a fishing boat

all day, you feel time
dissolve in water.

offbeat swells shrug
the craft. sun glare
stuns. you sense

the sea's in touch
with forever,
a distant cousin.

headed back to port,
you try to remind
yourself you're you.

gulls shriek, nobody
talks, land magnets
the boat close.

wobbly on a dock,
you again accept
your position: the

skipper of your life.

hans ostrom 2021

© right now      

Hobbies?

When English, just coltish,

was trotting around medieval isles,

a hoby was a small, busy horse

that went nowhere. Ah, then

came the hobbyhorse, a child's

plaything, wicker or wood.

Another horse that went nowhere--

and anywhere in the kid's mind.

Look: we need more hobbies,

as we wait for the revolution

we want or dread. Hobbies 

instead of screeching hateful

things, badgering strangers,

firing guns, or guzzling swill

brewed by cults and hustlers.

Yep, carve wood, stitch lace,

raise ancient cars from the tomb

of rust, brood over chess, thump

guitars or keyboards, water

family trees, horde shoe-horns.

More stuff we do should go 

nowhere like a hoby. There's

nowhere to go anyway. We're

just here, Earth. Keep it tidy,

settle in, find something pleasant

about which to obsess

like that aunt of yours who

lived in a hive of Elvisiana.

In your hobby hide from

your worst self, advertisers,

and those who wish no one well. 

hans ostrom 2021

Sometimes You Meet a Very Good Tree

A palm tree, a bit taller than a person:

thick brown-gray hair covers its

trunk, coarse as a horse's mane,

and bark grows in widely spaced

 pieces that curve up and out

in baroque arcs. The trunk is

narrow at the hips, wide at

the chest--like a torch: and it

flames with green fronds. 

Yes, I'm standing there,

rubbing palm hair between

my fingers, starring up,

smiling. This is a tree 

on a mission to amuse

itself. And me. 

hans ostrom 2021

Velton Stopped Cheering

(revised)

Velton stopped cheering

at football games

and football

matches when he realized

that no one heard him

above the noise

and so a stadium of silence

rose in his mind

a space that applauded

his separateness, his

sense of Velton himself

sitting, standing, in a crowd,

but not of the crowd,

no not of the crowd. 

hans ostrom 2021

Old Man, I'm Talking to You

 [revised a bit]

Old man, I'm talking to you. I am you: 

I didn't used to be, no--I used to fly past

on a train. You'd be sitting on a bench

at the station--gray eyes, gray sweater,

a blur of inert age. And I? Well, I

was all tendon-taut, unfraught, lithe,

and smug with youth. Uncouth. I was

on my way to . . . to here, as

it happened, and it's happened.

I'm sitting, situated at the station now,

too, talking to you, old man. Here

comes the rain. Here comes a train.

hans ostrom 2013/2021

All Electric Poem

This poem used to sound

like a gargling dinosaur,

for it ran on petrol. Now

it's all electric and whirs

like an old cat's throat.

My friend rode with me--

she said, "You know, 

the poetry rush hours

will soon go quiet, will

slither soundlessly along

like traffic pythons."

Home now. I've plugged

in the poem to solar

power. It's sipping electrons,

blithely ignorant of

Daytona, of Monaco. 

hans ostrom 2021

In Heaven (If Heaven)

in heaven (if heaven)

laughter must surely roll

in endless echoing squalls 

when former people speak

of achievements, wealth,

and fame--then catch

themselves, seeing successes

as less than a dissolved

banana peel in a garden 

compost; and giggling with

others and others and others,

everybody foolish and free,

nothing to prove, no one to prove

it to in heaven (if heaven).

hans ostrom 2021

oh memory, oh winter bee

memory seems like a silver
city, a golden continent, a
paisley planet. but if you ventured
to Past, you'd land
in a swamp of minutes,
a humidity of duties,
nettles of the now,
and the who you were then.

my god, memory's a façade,
a sliding presentation to yourself,
the greatest hits and duds.
life is thick as mud, as
tangled as a junkyard,
an all-at-once crammed
into thimbles and shot glasses.

you long to go back sometimes,
a winter bee honeyed with glee
for the buzzing of what was.
you can't go, because and because.

hans ostrom 2021

missed ferry

you missed the ferry. waited

on that loaf-shaped green island,

glum on a soggy slick dock.

I waited on the other dock.
saw then the ferry coming,
a floating cake. here

you came. smiles and a
hug in rain. I thought of
how many humans had met,

will meet like this, down
through wet and dry centuries,
after crossing water, deserts,

mountains... then I crossed
back to the moment, heard how
your voice shaped words,

lit laughter. your laughter.

hans ostrom 2021