Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Jazz Piano - Hank Jones

Brain Surgery

A squad of technicians, dressed in blue,

arms folded, looks down at me in bed.
The anesthesiologist's potions
put me fast under before the surgeon,
Dr. Cho, gains the stage.

In my blank darkness, I don't know
he's drilling a keyhole into my skull,
then sawing a crescent-cut. Then it's
on to slicing into the brain, shoving muscles
aside, and peering in to find the Culprit:

a manatee-fat artery stalks the trigeminal
nerve from neck to jaw, lying on it
like Jabba the Hutt. The t.g. controls
eye-business, cheek business, taste
and tongue and gum business--much
show business in one facial hemisphere.

Stressed and pressed, it shoots electric-
bolt spasms into cheek or gums, deep
throbs into gums, electric flutters into
eyelashes. Before some minor palliatives
arose, the ailment drew the quaint nickname,
"the suicide disease."

In this case, the smitten artery
never gives up. Dr. Cho, pugnacious
neurosurgeon, begs to differ. He tracks
the obese entity like Kit Carson, slipping
Teflon pillows under it so that it may
lounge ineffectually, thus liberating
Mademoiselle Trigeminal Nerve.

Scheduled for 3 hours, the surgery
goes six. Awake, I'm bashed and bushed
(tell that to Cho!). Now, recovery: cautions,
gentle rainstorms of brightly colored pills,
sleeping upright (Dear Lord Give me Strength),
trying to hide from my loving, effective,
but Jesuitical wife, watching the brain
recalibrate and reboot. Suddenly I have
a Tom Waits voice and must eat in tiny
garden-party morsels. But: no pain.

I must add that a Black nurse
absently stroked my forearm
before the dance began. It was a task,
but she did it. I squeezed her fingers.
Empathy, the original medicine.

hans ostrom 2023

Crowded Mind

The mind: an airport, a stadium. From any place

or time in our lives, people push in & through,
invited maybe, mostly not: memory's
a wicked host. Ah, yes, Billy in
second grade, you were mean to him,
once, and it's haunted you since then
(if alive, Billy has forgotten you, of course).

Brown Lucina, seductive at 17, clouds
of perfume, precocious bust, she took
your arm and waltzed you to algebra class,
summoning an erection. Our

mental space: elastic, stuffed--
guilt, desire, nostalgia & the rest
howl like barkers outside clubs &
you can't say "Get out!" til it's
too late. You don't get to talk
as faces rush in, except perhaps
in some sad revisionist script:
you with your loser's bon mot.

hans ostrom 2023

Turn in Your Keys

The Ministry of Smaller Items
asks you, citizen, to turn in all
your older keys. The large ones
that used to open castles and tombs.

The saw-toothed ones that once
ruled the world of locked doors,
commercial and domestic.
The tiny ones that opened small,
shy boxes and secret handcuffs.

Such keys cannot communicate
through air or make locks chirp,
click, or tick. They cannot read
our thoughts or leave a trail
for our dear algorithms to follow.

As our Premier has said, "Old
is dangerous. New will save us!."
Yes, we are going to need you
to turn in your keys.

2023