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

Metro, Milano

Three steps down,
and you inhale a wash
of metro exhale,
a garrulous breeze blending
smells of dirt, steel, people,
and the past. As with all metros,
even the air commutes.

Turnstiles and silly small
gates need to know about your ticket,
which gets eaten then
barfed up by something chrome.
How strange
that all the metro workers have
left these caves.

Because you think in cities
that violence whispers to everyone,
you hang back from the track
at least six strides.

The train bullies a wind
in front of it.  The car doors
hiss like bothered cats. Outflow
of guarded faces comes before
inflow of anxious faces,
and don't dare take your time,
as if it belonged to you.

How quiet the riders are.
The train does all the talking--
a recorded voice from the 1960s,
lilting and aloof. A few furtive
glances disrupt the numbed
glumness. In the caves,

a few beggars and buskers
reshape not at all the flow of torsos
and heads on legs.  Branches
of the River Metro flow against
gravity up to level, where
oceans of noise are ludicrously
loud. Below, above, it's all
a goddamned semi-efficient mess.
Take your allusions

to Plato, Styx, and Persephone
and toss them like a ticket.
Nobody cares.
This is urban business. Surplus
value rides these trains
wherever these trains ride.


hans ostrom 2018

Museum of Design, Milano

in the cafe of
the Museum of Design
a warped table wobbles



hans ostrom