Treat It

Forty

thousand people
in the U.S. get shot
per year. Guns, guns, guns.
Symptomatic, I think, of an awful
disease. Oh, treat
it, please.

Hans Ostrom 2023

"America," by Robert Creeley

Recording/video of short poem by Robert Creeley. From Selected Poems by Robert Creeley. Copyright © 1991 by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved Originally published in Pieces (1969).


Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5JXmxeUBkU

Train Station, Milano

Because you're exhausted,
not to mention privileged,
you rest in Milano's main station
and let it be a buffering space
between you and America's
grotesqueries. You wonder if
anyone uses the word grotesqueries
anymore. Prob'ly not. You can't deny
the passport in your pocket.

You prefer the station cafe,
which pigeons frequent. They
thrust their monocled eyes
into the mix, use crumbs
as dice, and gamble away
their past with glee. Their
conversations distill many
throated percolations. Same
goes for the people.

Words from many human
languages try the air. Your
wish not to hear American
English is granted. People
in the station are happy
to see each other, their
laughter isn't cruel, and
no one's belligerent. It
seems miraculous.



hans ostrom 2018