What Would Bukowski Write?

I wonder what Bukowski would be writing
now. More Bukowski poems, of course.
Rooted in his life, some stuff made up,
who cares, and then, in a line anywhere
in the poem, a statement strikes like a snake.
You get an insight not offered up as one.
It tears into you. His poems usually ignore

the wider world beyond San Pedro
and other Hank haunts, as if the world,
because it was so stupid and mean,
wasn't worth his time, and it isn't,
and it's getting worse. Maybe he would

have said something about Trump, though--
how low down, dirty, and mean he is.
A pimp. A psychopath--the kind that kicks
a sleeping drunk on The Row to show off
to his friends, other rich boys. Kick and laugh.
The kind that deserves to end up
on the losing side of a brawl one night,
knocked out, beaten, bloody, and down,
nobody gleeful about it but lots of people
feeling like it was an exorcism.


hans ostrom 2018

Gangster President

vile gangster president
(cult of hatred) makes war
on law and knowledge


hans ostrom 2018

Salted Desert

Desolation amidst abundance:
the United States,
permanently warped by white
supremacy, mad with virulent
greed and perverse religion,
addicted to violence, proud
of ignorance. The salted
desert of its soul grows vast.



hans ostrom 2017

Awful Bog

That the U.S. president's speech
has declined into bits of blather,
a handful of flaccid bigoted prods,
and droplets of rancid smarm
sharply summarizes the state
of the nation's health. He is where
he should not be because our sense
and sensibilities continue sunk
in an awful bog.


hans ostrom 2017

America, Here's the Package

Here's the package: the hair looks
like a collapsed straw pompadour,
the skin like faded naugahyde. The
vocabulary goes zero to sixty and
stops, the attention span the same
in seconds. He can't even fake
empathy.  Is delighted to be ignorant
of history, science, economics, politics,
music, art, psychology, law, philosophy.

The White Supremacist road begins
and ends in an abyss of willful ignorance.

It's as if he played Monopoly instead
of learning even the most basic of
human things. He's witless, petty,
dull, and unctuous  Couldn't plan a sneeze
after inhaling pepper. Shouldn't
even be president of his local
hate group.  Consider how many
White folks still think he's all
right, and that will tell you where we are.


hans ostrom 2017

Engulfed

A shadow hands you a book
and walks away. You open
the book to a middle page,
where you read, "The good idea
of 'America' died from complications
related to the disease of White
Supremacy. You're living in the
funeral." You close the book,
turn, and see a million shadows
and more rushing toward you.


hans ostrom 2016