You Hold the Door

You sometimes think, What

does any of this have to do with me?
Everything, of course. You and the
8 billion breathe the same air,
recycled from the air early Africans
breathed before the land
got named Africa. The children

bombs, bullets, and missiles kill
for not one single good goddamned reason
raise your ire, eve if you ire's impotent.

The woman earning her wage
at the cafe knows your name,
and you know hers, and you two
sometimes speak of San Francisco.

At any moment, someone you have
never met may need your help,
and you theirs. Still, a person

knows that others plan the future--
often by refusing to plan, often
with sinister, even evil, habits in play.
No way the future belongs to you.
You ask no one, To whom does it

belong?" You take a last gulp
of coffee bean syrup and watch
the woman pull the wool hat
over her ears and go outside
to smoke a cigarette, check
her phone, and be alone. On
the way out, you hold a door
for a stranger. He says, "Thanks,'
and you say, "You're welcome."

Hans Ostrom 2024

The Shark Teeth Underground

I bought six shark teeth today.  Small ones.
Inexpensive. Also cheap, although not from
a shark's point of view. They came in a week
plastic box with a black foam mini-mattress.

They look a little like bobcat teeth.
Their color runs from taupe to blonde.

They remind me of when I bought
a chocolate-brown baby octopus
at Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco,
when I was 8. These cheap,

eccentric creature keepsakes
(my mother's word) keep me going.
They symbolize a child's economy,
which dictates that all the stuff

in the world, like sticks, rocks, bones,
and bugs, is a vast, astonishing
pile of wealth. You can just pick
some of it up and have it! Holy shit!

You can even covet it and save it.
But most of it you just let go,
a re-investment in the infinite treasure.

The economies in which I've had
to participate in sell things the seem
necessary or desirable.  But almost
all these things harbor a tumor
of dullness. That's why advertising

must work so hard to distract
us from the dispirited quality
of goods and services.  As a
practical matter, the more I keep

current on child economics,
the more sanguine I am as I go
undercover into the adult,
capitalist polity. My

code-name today is Shark Teeth.
If you want to join this underground,
you're already a member, and remember:
the wealth we explore, the miraculous
forms that delight us--they're cool
and inexpensive, often totally free.


hans ostrom 2016

Frank Herbert, Gore Vidal, and Richard Brautigan Walk Into a Bar . . .

In Tacoma, at the apocryphal corner
of Brautigan and Herbert Streets,
you may hear worms singing plaintive blues.

Turn on, tune in, drop out:
what bullshit. Nothing's that
sequential in T-Town, and Dr. Leary
was Ownership, not Labor or
Management.

It's a long way from San Francisco,
especially by dune buggy on back roads,
through the mind-fields.

Call yourself a duchess, call yourself
a duke. Nobody really gives a shit
unless you buy a round of beers
and feed the pool table. Seven-ball
in the Montana pocket off
the Portrero Hill rail. You
have to call it first.

Gore Vidal was stationed near Tacoma,
but wrote over the episode
while serving his celebrity in Italy.

Shit can get complicated real fast
is the theme of every novel,
every life.


hans ostrom 2015

A Visit From 1971

(image: album-cover of Led Zeppelin IV, 1971)












Hey, 1971

1971 rolled up out of somewhere in a 1965
Ford Fairlane, which seized itself with fried
brakes and halted in a heap of smoking steel,
bringing sounds of a baritone AM DJ yelling
over the first thuds of a rock-song. 1971

got out and loped up the sidewalk
toward him. 1971's hair was mismanaged
but sincere; the year's draft number was
low. The clothes 1971 wore looked like an amateur
Cubist installation. Oh, here came 1971,
jogging now, yelling delighted words. It
grinned as it ran up and embraced him, as smelly
and guileless as a dog. He didn't know what
to say to 1971 except the ironic, "Nice Car."

1971 said, "Hey, man, could I borrow, you
know, 25 bucks or so? When I get to
San Francisco, I'll send you a cashier's check,
man. Sound good? Right on." He retained
great affection for 1971 and gave the year
a 50-dollar bill, which disappeared into a
blue-jean pocket, and BAM, the Fairlane
backfired as 1971 took off, no seat-belt.


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom