Almost Faith

Good Lord and my word,

Existence seems absurd.

Still, if you insist
I’d guess that God exists—

But that—that’s just a guess.
And meanwhile: what a mess.

hans ostrom 2024

Regarding Planted Trees

The trees I've planted in several
locales on this West Coast
have their own lives. They
must manage sap, paint leaves,
then cast them off, then more
leaves, blossoms, plums, apples . . .
Birds and insects consider
these trees to be airports

and resorts for summer avian
tourists. From a window
I can see the sensualist fig
tree spread its branches
voluptuously. It produces
shamelessly extravagant leaves.
Months from now it will let
figs swell, harden, soften
lasciviously. Thank God 
I planted that tree, I murmur
sometimes to myself, quietly.


hans ostrom 2020

Photographs of Kafka

Photos of Kafka
bend the heart a bit.
They make you want
to buy him coffee,
also pastry, and listen
to him tell a joke.

He's slight, his face
is bony, his coat's
too big. He isn't absurd:
The photos mean too much.

You want to say, Come
back, Mr. Kafka, and have
another try. If God knows,
then God knows you've
earned a second chance
with fresh lungs
and time to write.



hans ostrom 2020

When a Night Takes

When a night takes years
to pass and fever builds
a monstrous city in your brain,
you get some funny notions
about time. You writhe

in space like a wounded snake
and sweat like a stoker. God
can't hear you over the wreckage
of sounds in your head.

The pain belongs to someone who
reminds you of you, who
considers becoming terrified,
but that takes energy. And
from tomorrow's direction
comes the strangest thing,
which is you don't know what.



hans ostrom 2019

Cooling Crow

This city's hot and smoky: fires
in British Columbia, climate change.
My acquaintances the crows are
suffering. I daily provide them
food, water, and a target for their ire
(me).  Today though they're really hurting.

On a wire, one of them looks
straight up at sky and opens
his mouth.  The bifurcated beak
looks like an enormous black
clothespin. This is the posture
of crow prayer.  God will listen.

God made crow. (Don't tell crow!)
This is the posture of a performed
aria in a silent crow opera. This
is crow cooling off. ( You knew
it would be dramatic.) This is rare
crow, too hot to caw complaints.


hans ostrom 2017

Four Questions About the Future

How sophisticated does any
creature's mind have to be
to conceive of Future? Was
there an evolutionary ad-
vantage to imagining Future
and oneself in it? When
they were hiding from God
in the brush after complications
arose, how did Eve and Adam
discuss Future? What are you
going to do tomorrow?


hans ostrom 2016

Nevada

A human view has it that
a city of casinos and libertines
will be the center of sin
while piety flourishes on
the sagebrush plateau. God
probably thinks otherwise,
not being human. Not
opposite, just otherwise.


hans ostrom 2016

Mutant Country-Song

When it all falls apart
and I'm lying on my deathbed,
I hope the Lord'll forgive me for
what flashes through my head.

"I hope someone's getting laid,"
for example. Or "I hate Nashville
worse than bosses." Or "I don't
think God gives two shits about
your politics--or your religion."
And, of course, "Ouch, that hurts
like a motherfu--."

[Docking complete: begin transfer
of pickup truck (old), farm, train,
mama, daddy, pretty girl, "darlin'", 
we, they, goodbye, dancin', 
hungover, fishin', gospel.]

I hope the Lord'll forgive me
for what may flash through my head
when everything falls apart and
I'm lying on my deathbed--or

on a couch, a highway, grass,
the crapper (Elvis!), a stretcher,
or a woman (darlin').


hans ostrom 2016

"How You Represent Yourselves"

...And here they had thought all along
that what they must not try to represent
was God. No images of God!
they told each other in many
languages, from many faiths
and points of earthly view.

It turns out that God
(named differently by different
faiths) later told them
in a Godly language, Go ahead
and try to image me. I can
be God right in front of you
all day long, and night, and you'll
never no not ever image me
accurately.

And God added, for God can
and will add, I have seen
what you produce, all that crap,
and what bothers me is how
you represent yourselves.
Yourselves you do not represent
imaginatively. And you never
no not ever seem to weary
of killing each other,
mechanically, habitually,
routinely. Killing is
a representation, apparently,
of what and whom you aspire to me.

God suggested, You must ask
yourselves what is wrong
with you; ask continually.
Do not ask me. Represent yourselves
more imaginatively.


hans ostrom 2015
#BlackLivesMatter

"God Scatters Beauty," by Walter Savage Landor

"God Moves in a Mysterious Way," by William Cowper

"Rain Music," by Joseph S. Cotter, Jr.

"God to Hungry Child," by Langston Hughes

Design or Accident

That which happens, especially the bad:
is it design or accident? we ask.
Often we ask it. Many who are also human
will provide responses. You have
heard the range of answers.

Reality, that
universal beast, does not
respond, except for its
continual and infinite shrug,
which can be interpreted
as yes or no or maybe
or I don't understand the question.



hans ostrom 2013

What Exactly Do You Mean?

Divine algorithms
press against
brittle positivist
walls, disturbing
the binary peace.
God did well in math.



hans ostrom 2013

why do people?

why do people like pickles?
why do they buy pickles, hey?
why do people use phones?
why do people make poetry?
why do people claim
they do have homes?
listen to the people.
they say, and they say, and
they say.the
people say!

why do people hate people?
why do people torture people?
why do people think people
ain't people? you'
got to be
crazy
to
think that.

maybe you have been an
Ain't People.
hey, maybe you know how
it feels.
for reals.
--feels to be seen
as less than nothing.
knows what it's like
to stand there,
wond-ring. wond-ring
why oh why,
why me?

Oh Lord Ah God
oh true and only one.
you are bigger than
the sun. Please will
you freight in
some answers
about this plight,
this fate, this one.

(oh, yes, this one.)



hans ostrom 2013

The Situation

even if you believe in a
divine ordering, you have to feel
the absurdity of our wee
ball-bearing, which spins
in a corner of infinity.
there's no way

to make sense of the situation,
so you just live in the situation
as you find it. i will not say God

isn't. how could i know that?
us and our "minds": ha!

this is one unfathomable
situation, this situation of
ours, for sure.


Copyright 2012 Hans Ostrom

Of Atheism

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Of Atheism


Its virtue is its flaw: it makes sense.
Makes sense within the tiny room
of human experience.  It is a kind of
Puritanism (atheists are often righteous),
without the fabulous fractures, the gothic
repressions: melodrama. Some atheists,
to be fair, are entertaining as hell--
when they talk about God. Some
of the jokes are excellent. When

atheists hold forth only on atheism,
however, they become preachers,
and one can hear the creaking of
the hobby-horse and the snoring
from the back of the room. Atheism

is like a three-act play with one act,
a dull, factually accurate brochure
sent to millions, or a worn windshield
wiper. I mean, really? That's it? That's

the best you can do? Spoil everybody's
mystery, smother everyone with
an empirical pillow? I love atheists
in the way I love boulders and chores.

Atheism is a glass of tepid milk.
It is a beige uniform with the letters
this is it stitched on it in brown thread.

Atheists, bless your hearts.


Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom

No God/Yes God

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No God/Yes God


No God. Physics is all. Yes
God. Yes fathom God. God
is no dice-player. Pascal will
take your wager. No God,
they say, they say atheism is
the good news, if so: yikes.
Despair, respond, no God.
Yes God, repair, despair, Oh
God? Flawed God, no God.
God fails the test, their test,
they say, no intervention into
bad. Yes God, who knows--
who knows? If no God, then
know No. If yes God, then
never the when, yes to an
infinite go, and faith in yes--
which is often a faith in I-do-
not now know, you know?

Copyright 2011

Plato, Kant, Life

Plato, Kant, Life


There is no categorical
imperative or Platonic ideal.

These things do not exist.
They are that. Life is this.

More imaginative than Kant
is God, who does not want,

who makes perfect sense,
who knows the original whence.

Plato imagined he knew
what to make of this stew,

life. His notions were less than ideal.
This stew is terribly real,

not approximation, God knows.
Out of mystery, not forms, creation flows.

We and life are history,
Whereas God is  mystery.

God is neither categorical nor ideal.
God is rather formlessly real.

Copyright 2011