Artists in an Empire

If you're an American, you're a citizen
of an imperial nation. A general
and a president (a general and 
a president) gave us fair warning
about a military-industrial complex.
He had helped to defeat one earlier.

If you're an American artist (poet
or painter, musician, novelist . . .),
you're an artist in an imperial
nation, which makes empire
your business by default.

What can be done about this?
This begging question loiters
near you. You see it or hear it
or you don't.  Or you do and don't.

What does an American's art
have to do with this American
empire? That's another question.
The questions pile up like
things an empire builds.


Hans Ostrom, copyright 2012

Living With the Sound

/
/
/
/


Living With the Sound


I've lived with the sound of what
are called fighter-jets all my life:
sonic-booms over the Sierra Nevada then,
air-scraping roar of weapon-laden planes
over Puget Sound now. It is

a sound denoting the American Empire.
That is a fair statement. Anyway, today
when the noise materializes, a cat
lifts its head instinctively, as if to try
to discern the sound through the ceiling.

I lift my head to look at the cat. The sound
has always been the sound of something
far above and beyond my control,
closer than the sky, farther
away than the moon.

Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom