"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

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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

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Obscure Advice

Don't make an enemy

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hans ostrom 2023

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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.

Carrot Haiku

 Sweetness of carrots

can come wrapped in a thin shield
  of faint soap-flavor
                        *
  Oh, sunset aflame,
color-cousin of citrus fruit
  & road caution cones
                      *
  Large bits, drillers of
soil. Gaudy green Mardi Gras
  feathers. Round shoulders.
                      *
  Hide is rough, lumpy--
carrots are miners, you know.
  Tips taper to thin string.
                    *
  The smell of nectar
seized from soil, of earned sugar.
  Subtler than parsnips.
                   

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. 

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