Assessing an Evening

What evens at evening?

A dog's barking takes bites
out of quiet. In their buildings,
people cook, drink, take medicine,
talk, give up, rage, look at screens.

Outside, birds have returned
to nests and perches, warming
each other, silencing caw, shriek,
whistle, and song. I decide to use
all this information as evidence

of local equilibrium at dusk,
something that's fine by me.
I'm more weary than optimistic.

hans ostrom 2023

I Spy the Local Eagle

I'm hauling a bin of prunings

and clippings when a bald eagle
flies by low. With one quick
side-glance, it unnerves me.

Such a sure bird, dark and big-
shouldered, yellow-clawed
like a dragon, its wide wings
like a glider's. Those white

head-feathers surround cold
binocular eyes, microscopic
if need be, as when the eagle
parks above water, wings wide,
not moving, not straining, absolute
mastery of air-currents. And
the bird with the wrecking
beak looks down. Sees
the necessary fish. Dives.

Bound to land, I pull
the bin like a large draught horse,
heavy-footed, and a breeze
teases my cap.

hans ostrom 2023

Northern Flicker

Northern flicker, cousin

of the wood-peckers:
It's such an accidental dandy,
with polka dots, a black cravat,
dusk-blue cap, red ornament--
and a subtly curved, bladed beak.

And when it takes off,
a shock of yellow shows
like the lining of cape.

Each early Spring, one flicker
beak-hammers the metal flashing
on our chimney. I'm back!
Such a lonely, obvious bird,
too guileless to annoy.

It likes to blast a high-pitched
shriek and dine on fat bugs
pincered out of trees and posts.

I've never not been thrilled
to see or hear a Northern flicker.

hans ostrom 2023

Former Navy Commander's strong message for Florida on what a book ban means

He Wheels His Worldly Goods

He wheels his worldly goods

now in a chair 
his mother sat in as he pushed her
along sidewalks and into shops
not far from her small place where
he slept on the couch, and helped her out.

She died, all leases up, and so
he's back on streets, in parks,
and underneath the tarp he carries
with him. He washes up wherever
he can. --Getting by,

getting warm when possible in
a world where people try like hell
to look away. The barrier between
the sheltered and unsheltered seems
high to them. A few toss money over it.

He could tell them (but he never does)
with what ease a person can slip down
the ladder. A little illness and some
depression, or psychosis, add some
loss of work and a broken web of friends
and family--and that will do the trick.

One night you're sleeping in your car.
And then you have to sell the car for cash.
And then you're pushing all you have
in a chair your ma used to sit in
as she encouraged you not to lose hope.

hans ostrom 2023

Counter-Invictus

 a poem in conversation with William Ernest Henley's "Invictus"

Out of the day that covers me,
Gray as the gray of dull wool,
I think what gods may hang around
To remind me I'm a fool.

When things have gone quite wrong,
I've acted well or badly or okay,
Up to the challenge sometimes, sometimes
Not: One can't predict which way.

Beyond this sphere of our mortality,
Lies who knows what for sure?
Hell, yes, I am afraid to die,
To go forever from Is to Were.

To say you are the Captain of
Your fate is bluster or delusion
For accidents happen all the time.
And Captains sail into confusion.

If there is such a thing as Fate,
Then It is the big fleet's Admiral,
And we, alas, at best passengers.
So how much can we control?

hans ostrom 2023

Hovering Sipper

I expanded the cinquain form here to 7 lines--a septtain? 2, 4, 6, 8, 6, 4, 2 syllables per line. Syllabics can be pleasurable--for the writer, at least--sometimes. 

Hovering Sipper

A hum-
ming bird, its back
iridescent green, its
gray wing-blur wrapping its body,
sips shots from the powder blue
rosemary blooms.
April.

1971: Ernie's Epiphany

A massive black car rocks like a boat
as it roars down a dirt road on bald tires.
The driver's shirtless, stoned, and drunk
in desert heat. He smokes a cigarette
with one eye scrunched against the smoke.

He becomes aware he's barreling
down a road, eating dust, sucking
smoke, smelling like a goat,
and seeing double. Also, the radio's
just died. He pulls over

and stops, kills the engine. The
cloud of dust passes by. He listens
to the desert singing scorched blues.

He rests his head on the hot
black steering wheel--which
now seems to him an absurd
auto part. Out loud he says,

"I don't know what I'm doing
or why." Pause. "Well, I guess
that's a confession to build on.
He opens the glove box,
shoves the unloaded pistol
aside, and takes out a map.

Entropy Dance

Entropy is undefeated,

has a perfect winning streak
since the Big Bang boogied
and bopped into Universe. Still,

things and beings have
their days and nights. Our sun
can do some gardening here
on Earth for a span we really
can't imagine. I will

have lived and listened
and read about physics
(the math inscrutable to me)
for some decades. Decades!
Less than a single photon
as far as Time's concerned.

Brothers and Sisters, the aging
run out of energy. Their coping
turns into an awkward
dancing tribute to Entropy.

hans ostrom 2023

She Liked Inspector Maigret

 Elise Moeller Ostrom, 1927-2023

When her husband my uncle died,
I sent her a note and a mystery novel.
When next I saw her, she said,
"Thanks for your note and for not
sending me a goddamned book on grief."

She has just died, age 95, after decorously
drinking a lot of beer and devouring
crime novels for seven decades.
I never saw her not composed. She
saved that for privacy.

Her opinions firm as tungsten,
she voted liberal and pro-union
but wanted results, not fools
prattling ideology.

Her father was a football coach
and she married one, followed
fanatically the S.F. 49ers. Into old age,

she grew flowers, stacked her own
firewood, shoveled snow, and
fed migrating doves. We liked
each other a lot because, I think,
we liked words. Love? Grief?

Well, sure, but with restraint.

hans ostrom 2023

"Sinister Blue Vine," Roger Illsley

It's 1949 . . .

... and the rural mountain saloon's
full of cigarette smoke and men, maybe
a woman or two, though the word gal
is still in use. One man's missing
a leg up to the hip. Another's
almost blind: the war. No one
shares their most private thoughts--
of death, desire, fear, poverty.

Glasses of beer and whiskey
go to lips. It's an age of basic booze.
Smoke goes in and out of lungs,
spiders up to the stained wood ceiling.

The bartender, red-faced, washes
glasses, empties ash-trays, wipes
the dark varnished bar, counts back
coins stained with dirt and grease.

Already another war is coming. Like
waves, wars keep coming. The bosses
of history don't visit bars like this
or live in towns like this or work
with their hands. Calendars
and clocks trick the mind,
and it's almost dinner time.

hans ostrom 2023