"You're in Wichita (And I Am Not),"

 I always wanted to write an old-fashioned "country" song with spare lyrics, so I gave it a go and came up with "You're in Wichita (And I Am Not)." with assistance from Roger Illsley, who wrote some music for it and performed and recorded it for Youtube:

"You're in Wichita"

The Genre of Sad Erotica

 In the genre of sad erotica, main

characters are tired and smell bad.

They feel too fat or too thin, too old,
too young or too middling. They touch
their bodies like they handle a heap of laundry.

They're hungry but too tired from work
to cook. Could be no one's there
to cook for them. Or someone's there
but mutual indifference grinds
the ambience like a glacier.

Oh, a bath would feel great but only after
booze or weed. Food delivered?
Microwave launched, cans slashed open?
Leftovers devoured like a dog's breakfast?

They sleep in front of a screen and wake
up confused, then vacant. So where's the
erotica? Well, maybe as bath or shower
stimulates flab and muscle, they think about

sex! They think about what sex might
bring. Oblivion of lust, the feeling
of being someone (well, something,
anyway) someone wants to touch. Alas,

in sad erotica, grotesquely realistic,
people get out of the shower and dry
themselves and put on cotton, linen,
or wool. Likely worn several nights
in a row. They walk slowly to a bed
or couch and fall, exhaling like beasts.

In sleep, maybe dreams of purple
romance, sizzling mystery, and molten
sex will riot. Finally, some action.

Giving Blood

 "We use your blood for babies," says the nurse.

“Give them my best,” I say. She nearly smiles.

The opaque bag darkens shadow-red
with my corpuscular tithing. Blood's

darkness always surprises me, suggests how
blood wells up from mineral earth like lava.

The blood-room’s hushed, as if we lying
on padded tables were sacrificial goats

with slit throats and the strong nurses, priests.
A tall woman or short man who used to be

a baby will stroll in flowered Paris one
day, pulsing traces of my blood, which

is O-Negative and CMV-Negative. My heart
never thought to teach me what these words

and letters mean. Do vampires carry all
types of blood, and is that why they’re

so pale and mean and unproductive?
I mean, get out of the casket, Drac,

go to bloodoholic rehab, give back to
the community. Just don’t donate blood,

and stay the hell away from babies...
Finished, I'm offered a cookie and juice.

hans ostrom 2022

"Hallelujah, Gloria," music video

 A glum day for multiple reasons. So I decided to make a lowest budget music video of a song that Roger Illsley (music) and I (lyrics) wrote that Roger recorded. We hope it's smile-worthy. Well, here it is:

"Hallelujah, Gloria"

"In 1940," by Anna Akhmatova

 The Penguin Selected Poems of hers, translated by D.M. Thomas, is a great intro to her poetry in English. Somehow she survived WW2 and Stalin's terror--many of her compatriots did not. The Akhmatova House in St. Petersburg, Russia, is now a museum. And there is a Joseph Brodsky room near the entry. You go through a small tunnel just off the street to get to the house, and the walls are covered with poetry graffiti. It's as if everyone has agreed to put only poetry graffiti up there; pretty cool. 

A reading of a short portion of "In 1940", with short video:

Akhmatova poem

Ragusa, Sicily: Festival Blues

At the Alta Villa Trattoria in Ragusa,

Sicily, as the St. Giorgio fest rolls

to a finish, you listen to small brass

bands haul their marches through

sun heat up toward the baroque 

cathedral, which manages to seem

at once imposing and cute. It's where

a solid silver ark holds "the bones

of various saints," an old man told you. 

George, the saint that counts, remains

forever young in painted wood, gentle

face, white horse, sharp lance. Later,

in an evening without breeze, everyone's

had about enough of whatever they thought

they'd come for in the festival. A hard woman

with a fish tattoo stuffs her phone in her jeans,

disgusted. She'll argue with anyone who 

wants to and some who don't. A toothless

ex-boxer is spruced up in an official white

shirt and red bandana. The Alta Villa 

Trattoria's mostly for locals. It's a living.

Nearby, the guy who sells hand-made

puppets plays Ella Fitzgerald all day,

so I stay, buying enough coffee & water,

salads &sandwiches, & bottles &

bottles of water to pay my way. 

"Memory of My Father," by Patrick Kavanagh

 Reading/video of a short poem by Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967), well known Irish poet and novelist:

"Memory of My Father" video

Closing Time

 

Tonight my cabaret of fears

glowed and hummed.

A band played anxiety

in sharp keys. We asked

the bartender to remove

his Death costume and put

away the scythe. Insulted,

he yelled, “Drink up, last call!”

A good time was not had by all.

hans ostrom 2022

Treasure Enough

 slices of yellow peach

with a few blueberries

in a bowl. some water

and homemade bread.

outside, birds make

raucous noise, manic

after rain-showers. all

this is treasure enough.

hans ostrom 2022

William Butler Yeats goes full gothic!

 I hadn't read this poem until recently. A vampire poem from WBY.  Short poem, with reading and video:

"Oil and Blood" on Youtube

The Bees Work in the Rain

The bees work in the rain. Some climb

Into the orange of poppies, some

Into the blue and purple lavender.

So cold, so wet so late this year.

We have the Winter blues in June,

While elsewhere draught and fire say

The future's now. Do not begrudge the rain,

We whisper to our consciences, which will

Not hear. I dive into the weeding,

Get wet and chill and caked with mud.

But it's all right, as everything

From peonies to roses now

Is bursting into bright, and bees

Work in the rain and don't complain,

Must move the nectar now into the hives.

hans ostrom 2022

Concerning Bob the Bull

         (Lincoln, California)

I'm feeding sweet green clover

to a black and white bull

under powder blue sky. Through

silver fencing, I poke the offering,

a gesture of friendship to Bob

the bull, bedeviled by black flies

and close farm heat. Bob stares

and sniffs. Leans into me, almost

breaks my hand--a gesture

of friendship. I talk, he listens.

He snorts, sucks cud, and grunts.

I listen. I poke more green past

that glue-thick slobber on his black

lips, past his keyboard of square

ivory teeth and onto a pale pink

slab of tongue. Bob accepts

the clover without chewing.

He has a lot going on.

His patience in the midst

of fly-swarms and de-horning

outstrips Zen perfection. I tell

Bob of his greatness. Mourn

with him his lack of cow

companionship. His mucous

drips like icicle melt. We'll not

meet again--a scheduling thing.

I feel a sadness as sweet as

Bob's inner pools of cud.

How fine it would be one day

to hear Bob's story from Bob.

hans ostrom 2022

Abandoned Gold Mine

In the mine, looking at gray 

soil oozing water,

you feel the folly of digging

a hole in a mountain and hoping

wooden beams and air will hold up

all the rock above you. Mining

is faith. You look at rusted

iron tracks and the one tiny-

wheeled ore car no one stole yet.

This is a burrow where the Gold Rush

came to die. Yet even you,

fever -free, son and grandson

of gold miners, look at quartz

around your feet and want

to see deep yellow flecks,

desperately want gold to be.

Building, blasting, mucking,

loading, pushing, lifting. Sucking

rock dust in, coughing it out.

Stripping at end of day to show

you didn't steal high-grade ore.

Cuts, contusions. That's the search,

the work. The mine was not theirs.

Decades later, you stand in the cool

tomb and feel the drive that drove

them all here to lay down tracks

to trek into a mountain's dream.

hans ostrom 2022