Primary Colors

In golden light yellow

hay made me sneeze,
wheeze.

I don't see many women
nor even men nor trans
wearing red lipstick anymore.

The 1950s kissed
with thick crimson lipstick, kicked
like a mean horse full
of bad yellow hay gas.

When an alpine lake,
I say brothers and sisters,
if an alpine lake
turns truly blue,
you must pause in awe
your fishing or kayaking,
your known rowing.

As the fog began to thin,
the sun looked like a flat,
cool yellow disc.

Bombs, bullets, missiles,
rockets, shrapnel, make
bloody death, dead bloody
children, babies, their mothers,
fathers, lying in blood
because Power does not
want in its red fury, its
ruinous hatred, to share.

Hans Ostrom 2023

"Winter Moon," by Langston Hughes

from "New Year Letter," by W.H. Auden

The New Pope 1x09 - John Paul III Speech

The New Pope: How Are We To Love (Season 1 Episode 3 Clip) | HBO

MC Lyte, Monie Love, and D-Nice perform "Ladies First" for Queen Latifah...

A Moment in a City

A seagull in silhouette--

it glides across sky's last light.
Unsheltered, a woman stirs
beneath blankets in a shop's
entryway. Uncovered,
her face is leathered and red.
Cars roll by, roll on.
The sound of their engines underlies
all we hear on the sidewalk.

We're among the living today,
the ones cast in this play,
humanity, but local to this moment's
scene. The shapes of moments
shift constantly. None of us passing
helps the woman. Should I go back
and give her money at least?
The shadow of the seagull is long gone.

hans ostrom 2023

A Secret

A secret is like

an egg in a bird's nest
that sits on a limb
in your mind. The
egg will later hatch,
gain strength, and fly away.

hans ostrom 2023

Regina

 t the Rosewood Hotel, London

Regina, of the hotel's front desk,
I like the way you write your name.
Your printing looks both regal
and tentative. You made the word
you made sincerely. It's your name.

Regina, of the helpful suggestions,
I like your lovely, narrow face,
your way of talking about Portugal,
your homeland, and how you speak
English fast when you come out

from behind the desk to tell us
about an exhibition at the Tate Modern,
and to tell us you're and artist
and tell us your parents encouraged
your art. Regina, artist.

hans ostrom 2023

Lost Motels

On the relegated highways

that tollways and freeways blast
past, some derelict motels still stand--
an American genre.

They're bearded with weeds,
pastel paint blistered,
neon nullified. Oh, how

the salesmen, adulterers,
truckers, con-artists, and loners
lighting out for territories
used to roar in, driving finned
cars, smoking unfiltered cigarettes,
sweat-lines running down shirts
covering their reptilian spines.

The world then was full of
Kodachrome sunshine, cash,
radios, and righteousness. Night clerks
sat in back room like sentries,
sneaking shots of bourbon.

What happened to all those
atlas-thick registers filled
with names in cursive, to all
that red lipstick, all those hats
and wing-tipped shoes?

A jutting metal sign squeals
and rusts. Rats' toenails
click on buckled linoleum.
Presidents Truman and
Eisenhower recline in graves,
and ignored two-lane highways
slumber like cold snakes.

hans ostrom 2023

"Homage to Saint-Exupery," by Stuart K. Calderwood

 A link to a superb villanelle, an homage to the pioneer pilot, lost war hero, and writer ("The Little Prince") Antione Saint-Exupery by a fine poet originally from Yorkshire, now teaching at Harvard, Stuart K. Calderwood:

https://allpoetry.com/poem/17517188-Homage-to-Saint-Exupery-by-Stuart-K-Calderwood

If Trump Wins: "Inviting the Dark Ages Across the Planet" | Amanpour and...

Piano Tuning

It creates a long, slow, aimless

tune, a dirge for a labor, blues

of the piano itself. Vibrations

that have wobbled and warped

get hauled back to pitch and harmony.

The tuner cranks a ratchet--

he's a melody mechanic,

an interpreter of intervals.

After a long slumber, 

the highest and lowest

notes wake up. The musicking

of tuning fills the room

with foreboding, making

a nest for songs that hands will

ask the piano to play later. 

"The Magi," by William Butler Yeats

Inward Sea

Remembering's such a liquid world,

as if what is recalled swims out of murk--

the mind diving to meet it once again--

and then the memory waggles back to depths.

But what's down there, down deep,

forever, never to swim up again?

There, not there, what weird forgotten

creatures or shards of little shipwrecks

might emerge? You think this as you lean,

look past the edge of now, the present moment

rocking like a boat. Remembering, or not,

you look into that inward sea of yours. 

hans ostrom 2023

Redlining in Tacoma

Aspects of Living in the Moment

I tried to "live in the moment,"

as recommended

& found that moments stuck

together like hard candies

in hot sun. Other moments

seem to pour in and out

of life like red ants out of

a sizzling nest. Some

moments just evaporate--

gone before I could 

even knock on their doors,

let alone live in them. Which

can be okay, as for instance

that moment in the dark

when I stubbed three toes

on an old oak chair. 

hans ostrom 2023

Rhiannon Giddens - Wayfaring Stranger

Broken Airport

 The terminal takes its name literally,

is a disintegrating destination.
Flights cancelled, transport stuck.
Even a nun mouths the word, "Fuck."

Inside haggard people and swollen luggage
congeal like snow outside. The enraged become
resigned; the patient, stupefied. Jabbed
and punched by questions, employees
in company colors look like boxers
in late rounds. Everyone begins to resemble

everyone else. Distinctive personalities
melt into smeared canvas of weariness,
smothered rage, drunkenness, and hysteria.

People become their uncomfortable bodies.
Quickly clothes and hair get greasy.
Clean diapers become Black Market
currency. Bartenders become celebs.

Some people stand at windows,
achieve Zen peace by staring at airplanes
now ridiculous--aluminum sculptures
on tiny wheels, their cruising altitude
a myth beyond the lid of sky
that's been dropped on the airport.

--hans ostrom

The First Irish Joke Ever

PETE SEEGER ⑫ Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram (Live in Sweden 1968)

"For the Holiday," by Roger Illsley

From the African 6:8 rhythm to the American shuffle

Hans

Hans, pronounced hands

in my case: my name. A
version of John, Juan, Evan,
Giovanni....Such school

nicknames as Fingers,
Hansburger & Hanzy
have caromed off it.

When I was 6, I asked
my mother if I could change
my name to "just plain Bill."
"No," she said. Parenting
by edict was in style then.
For years the tale of the request
made the rounds in the extended
family. (You're welcome!)

A Jewish professor
in graduate school, after I'd
known him a while, asked
me if my first name was German.
"No, Swedish," I reported.
He looked relieved. I felt
relieved he look relieved.
Neither of us named
what we felt. Now I wear

my Hans like an old
friendly flannel shirt.
Names! Like invisible
back-packs. Like signs
above the shops of us.
We answer to our name,
and for it.

hans ostrom 2023

What Power Is — Michel Foucault

The Eagles - Hotel California - Reimagined on the Traditional Chinese Gu...

Eisenhower's "Military-Industrial Complex" Speech Origins and Significance

Broken Airport

The terminal takes its name literally,

is a disintegrating destination.
Flights cancelled, transport stuck.
Even a nun mouths the word, "Fuck."

Inside haggard people and swollen luggage
congeal like snow outside. The enraged become
resigned; the patient, stupefied. Jabbed
and punched by questions, employees
in company colors look like boxers
in late rounds. Everyone begins to resemble

everyone else. Distinctive personalities
melt into smeared canvas of weariness,
smothered rage, drunkenness, and hysteria.

People become their uncomfortable bodies.
Quickly clothes and hair get greasy.
Clean diapers become Black Market
currency. Bartenders become celebs.

Some people stand at windows,
achieve Zen peace by staring at airplanes
now ridiculous--aluminum sculptures
on tiny wheels, their cruising altitude
a myth beyond the lid of sky
that's been dropped on the airport.

hans ostrom

Alone

I wasn't alone

when I woke from five hours
of brain surgery. A nurse was there.
My wife, who'd waited all that time,
visited. And monitoring machines
blinked and sighed. I was lucky.

In the cold fog
of painkillers and an assaulted
brain, though, I felt
an aloneness all of us will feel
some time--a rude fact
of our existence. Right now

there are people buried
under bombed rubble
who feel absolutely alone.

I vomited regularly
for a whole day, casting
not much but bile into
plastic green bags.
My body thinks anesthesia
poison. (A lucky guess.)
That kept me distracted.

Still: that chill, that
psychic dungeon, that sense
of you, a cold infinity
of matter, and nothing else.

hans ostrom 2023

Early Morning Light

He woke up after 2:00 a.m.

in a rented room & looked
out a window & saw one bright
star in a dark sky. It hung

just above isolated
city lights. He guessed
the glinting diamond-like
shining came from Venus.

It took more time than he
thought for him to break
his gaze. Looking at the light
made him feel better. Why
not keep looking, then?--
that was the logic,

which seemed in his life
to prevail in these times
of murky, poisoned skies
hanging low over human
politics, human time.

hans ostrom 2023

This Time It's Real - Tower of Power LIVE

"Women Are Knackered" Rachel Parris On Misogyny | Late Night Mash | Dave

Obscure Advice

Don't make an enemy

out of an anemone. 

hans ostrom 2023

Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles documentary

'We rely on people telling us the truth for democracy to work' | John Cl...

'The Voice' Jay Black performs 'Cara, Mia' faultlessly, 36 years later!

Near Miss

God Only Knows - BBC Music

Blind Kid Throws D-backs First Pitch in Game 4 NLDS vs. Milwaukee Brewers

I thought She Was A Rock and Roller...Until THIS Happened

Mack The Knife | Bobby Darin with Arte Johnson as Piotr Rosmenko I Rowan...

One-Year Old Henry's Blues

   ... start with a higher-

pitched whine followed by grumbles
          low, real low: fussy

Beside the Ocean With a Baby

  for Henry

I'm sitting next to the ocean
in San Diego, a year-old baby
on my lap.

White-edged waves
roll over surfers' heads
like ripples of cream.

A mesmerizing dream,
the sea, at its edge.
The baby and I

Listen and see. We
watch and hear. We
feel the wind.

A cormorant glides
down--from where?--lands on
blue-grey glassy water.

Airplane Mode

Taking off, the passenger plane

grunts like a sow and rattles
like a San Francisco streetcar.

Tacoma's port comes into view--
orange cranes, white warehouses bigger
than football pitches, a stack

puffing white smoke like
an old sailor. Shaggy green
Puget Sound island appears.

On the steel-blue water:
one fishing boat, one container ship,
both as still as sleeping cats.

Through horizontal pink and blue
smears, dark eyebrows arch:
tops of the Cascade mountain range.

Wet gridded neighborhoods
show, spotted with dark evergreens
and yellow & orange puffs

of dying leaves. Far out,
the freeway curves past
the light blue Tacoma Dome,

which looks like a hemispheric
quiz-show buzzer. Now white
clouds curtain the whole scene

& a voice cautions us
again to put all of our devices
on airplane mode.

A Quick Fog

Today's fog seems like a soul

caught in a purgatory,
shunned by earth, air, fire,
and water but also of all four.

It rises up out of earth,
tumbles from air, fills itself
with water, and imitates smoke.
Today it rides down from hills

in San Diego, cools the brown
young women in scant bikinis
and the young men trying
to impress them. It blocks

the dropping dun. It wants
to befriend the moon's waves,
which ignore it and pound
the beach. Right before dusk,

the fog lifts, leaves like a hobo
hopping a train to Mexico.

At Del Mar Beach

At Del Mar Beach, waves

rush, colliding, hurry-hurry,
riding on high tide. They

nibble and chew at clay
banks below multi-million
ducat mansions. Black-suited

surfers look like flies on foam.
Joggers and cyclists pad and pedal
perpendicular to the sand.

I sit and listen to the ocean's
constant secret speech, never
able to translate it, but

mesmerized, almost absorbed,
by it. An ocean is
the grandest siren of them all.