lyrics by hans ostrom folk song
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Tuesday, March 3, 2026
Sunday, March 1, 2026
Thursday, February 26, 2026
Death and Joy
for the memory of W.B.
A longtime historian
friend, gold-standard trained
at Harvard, Cambridge, Yale,
has gone down hard:
neurological nightmare:
bodily and mental collapse.
Before the finale,
he said he was losing
big chunks of memory
like a glacier
calving blocks of ice.
Flip-flopping like a minor
sea monter in a water-
aerobics class to
"maintain health," you
obsess about your
friend's brutal rotting
and death. You look over
to another pool and see
a Black grandpa holding
a toddler in a swim-class.
He's shaved bald
with a trimmed gray beard:
a griot look you like.
You saw him before
and said, "I have a grandson
that age--isn't it great?"
"It is the greatest," he said.
Now you see again
his look of supreme joy
as he helps the kid
float. Joy and vicious
decay, along the way.
Are they supposed
to balance out?
Well, it's not math--
it's life. And death. Just
the way things are. You're glad
you glanced over to that other
blue pool as you wallowed.
friend, gold-standard trained
at Harvard, Cambridge, Yale,
has gone down hard:
neurological nightmare:
bodily and mental collapse.
Before the finale,
he said he was losing
big chunks of memory
like a glacier
calving blocks of ice.
Flip-flopping like a minor
sea monter in a water-
aerobics class to
"maintain health," you
obsess about your
friend's brutal rotting
and death. You look over
to another pool and see
a Black grandpa holding
a toddler in a swim-class.
He's shaved bald
with a trimmed gray beard:
a griot look you like.
You saw him before
and said, "I have a grandson
that age--isn't it great?"
"It is the greatest," he said.
Now you see again
his look of supreme joy
as he helps the kid
float. Joy and vicious
decay, along the way.
Are they supposed
to balance out?
Well, it's not math--
it's life. And death. Just
the way things are. You're glad
you glanced over to that other
blue pool as you wallowed.
Hans Ostrom 2026
Tuesday, February 24, 2026
Sunday, February 22, 2026
"Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known," by William Wordsworth
One of his famous "Lucy" poems turned into a folk song:
click
Saturday, February 21, 2026
"La Belle Dame Sans Merci," by John Keats, set to music
Keats's famous ballad (1819) sung and set to music via suno.com with prompts from Hans Ostrom
w/ video
click
Thursday, February 19, 2026
Wednesday, February 18, 2026
Tuesday, February 17, 2026
Monday, February 16, 2026
Sunday, February 15, 2026
Saturday, February 14, 2026
Thursday, February 12, 2026
Wednesday, February 11, 2026
Tuesday, February 10, 2026
Monday, February 9, 2026
Saturday, February 7, 2026
The Superb Owl
reposting one from 2015
(super bowl)
What is this superb owl
that everyone's talking about?
It sounds fantastic. I would
like to watch it, to see it glide
in moonlight across
a clearing, alighting in a grove.
Well, yes, of course, we may hold
a superb owl press-conference
and attend superb owl parties!
I don't yet know what in particular
the superb owl even better
than other owls I've seen.
I will not quit until I find out.
In the meantime, let be known
that near barns and in woods,
in city parks and gullies,
on plains and in mountains,
I am a fan of the superb owl,
its perfect wingspan cutting
silently, like longing,
through the air.
hans ostrom
copyright 2015
Friday, February 6, 2026
"Two Secrets," Lyrics by Hans Ostrom--Folk Rock
He kept one secrets and finally shared a second one . . . .
click on link
"Song of Solomon: Canto 7," rendered in a soul-jazz/R&B song
A Canto often noted for its sensual, erotic qualities.
click on link
Thursday, February 5, 2026
Wednesday, February 4, 2026
Tuesday, February 3, 2026
Monday, February 2, 2026
Sunday, February 1, 2026
Saturday, January 31, 2026
Friday, January 30, 2026
Thursday, January 29, 2026
In No Time At All
In a time designated September,
among short pine trees, and feeling
the high mountain heat, I look
across a deeply gashed canyon
and a thousand years--not time at all!--
to small homes people made
in gaps of limestone,
with sandstone rocks for
outer walls. Overhead,
crows, ravens, and hawks
whirl, riding the updrafts
of hot air. How quiet the Sanagua
generations must of have been.
I imagine murmurs and giggling,
sometimes overlain with shrieks
of illness or birthing cries. Little
traceries of smoke rising from
cook fires. People working to live.
I turn away from all the history
hiding in those crafted caves,
look down at a lichen-etched rock,
walk to the paved parking lot
to drive--in no time at all!--the roaring
machine back to Flagstaff and
its massive crops of housing.
Hans Ostrom 2023/2025
Wednesday, January 28, 2026
Dragonflies of Medicine
Physicians, doctors, remind me
of dragonflies. Large heads--
metaphorically. Complicated
engineering, motions fluid
and not. Often irridescent--
in self-regard. The main thing
is they never land for long. In
a room and out. Perched some
distance from the bedside,
then gone. Visible in a doorway--
then vanished. Flashing in,
flashing out, caught by bright
lights, but only for a snapshot.
It's as if they regard the patient--
the one who waits for everything--
as a potential predator. It's as if
physicians play a game of tag.
Tag, you're it, patient. You are
always It, not me.
of dragonflies. Large heads--
metaphorically. Complicated
engineering, motions fluid
and not. Often irridescent--
in self-regard. The main thing
is they never land for long. In
a room and out. Perched some
distance from the bedside,
then gone. Visible in a doorway--
then vanished. Flashing in,
flashing out, caught by bright
lights, but only for a snapshot.
It's as if they regard the patient--
the one who waits for everything--
as a potential predator. It's as if
physicians play a game of tag.
Tag, you're it, patient. You are
always It, not me.
hans ostrom 2026
Tuesday, January 27, 2026
Monday, January 26, 2026
Sunday, January 25, 2026
Saturday, January 24, 2026
Friday, January 23, 2026
Thursday, January 22, 2026
Wednesday, January 21, 2026
Tuesday, January 20, 2026
Monday, January 19, 2026
Saturday, January 17, 2026
Thursday, January 15, 2026
Wednesday, January 14, 2026
Tuesday, January 13, 2026
Sunday, January 11, 2026
Saturday, January 10, 2026
Friday, January 9, 2026
Thursday, January 8, 2026
Wednesday, January 7, 2026
Tuesday, January 6, 2026
Sunday, January 4, 2026
Saturday, January 3, 2026
Friday, January 2, 2026
Thursday, January 1, 2026
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