A Place Called Not

These days I ask

the dead stupid questions
like "Where are you?"

They answer with
ghostly shrugs,
phantom eye-rolls,
and other kinds

of silence. Cremation
or burial or just plain
rotting: tiny bits take
the place of bodies,

the place of minds
as fabulous as palaces--
dancing, insights,
laughter, jokes, similes,
sadness, crafts, and dreams!

The dead are in a place
I'm moving toward:
a genral locale called Not.

hans ostrom 2025