Preposterous

This planet onto which women

birth us: it's lit by an explosion

we call Sun. I think about

how that statement's parts

are all unlikely. Preposterious.

As is the visual, aural sign,

"preposterous" & the systems

it belongs to. Ask why any 

of this, any of us, occurred,

and I think if we're honest,

we must confess, "We cannot

know--not ever fully, all the way."

hans ostrom 2025

"An April Day," by Joseph S. Cotter, Jr.

Cats of Few Words

 "'The Meow Talk' app analyzes cat sounds against some 40 million 'meows'

in its database to suss out the meaning.'" --Emily Joshou, The Paw Print,
2025, p. 50

Minor meow: compact complaint, faint inquiry, note of ennui--
or all three. Brief

throated grumble: not urgent, it's just that things
could be a bit better.

Bared-teeth MEOW: Now! Hungry! Angry! Fusion
of sign- and sound-language. Wild,

whiplash yowl: Fight. Claws out. Neck-hair up.
Alarm. Alert the press! Call my lawyer!

Constricted throat-hiss. Sepentine. Next, claws
will rake. Meat and blood. Tactical sound-spear.

The yawn-meow, perhaps finished with groan-and
sigh. That cat's got those low-down napping blues.

For milennia, with such few sounds, this terse
lingo, cats have domesticated us.
Trained and bossed us. Been equal
if not superior to us. In each feline-infused
abode, cats sustain a coup d'etat,
lay down Cat Law.

hans ostrom 2025

'The most economically illiterate speech I have ever heard', analyst say...