Nobody Beats Tacoma

 (reposting one from a while back)

Here's how it works: Beginning as North 27th Street,

North 21st Street just gets its confidence up

when North I Street slugs it and takes over,

only to be vaporized by South Yakima Avenue,

which morphs into something called Thomson.

The streets of Tacoma are so mean they're

mean to each other. Nobody beats Tacoma. Nobody.

Seattle has forever misread the meaning of Point

Defiance. It's not a park or a peninsula,

or a place to play dress-up on your bike.

It is a destined middle finger pointed

vaguely north. Put a penny

on the railroad track down by the port,

and you might well summon Guy Fawkes,

Richard Brautigan, a Chinese laborer,

or a skeptical Puyallup woman, pre-contact.

Whoever it is will take your penny

and invest it in a cloud-cone

hovering above Rainier like the saucers

Kenneth Arnold saw, 24 June,

1947. About the time

you think you have Tacoma solved,

you find yourself on a suspension-bridge,

with a dog, and the bridge starts

writhing like a boa constrictor. Then

it flaps and twists, snapping itself

free from blueprints, taking a dive

like a punch-drunk stevedore

trying to earn a buck at a smoker

in 1931. The dog lives. If you remind

the tattooed woman at the drive-in

that you ordered everything on your

burger, she will tell you, without

animus, "That is everything."

Nobody beats Tacoma. You have

to understand: Tacoma is more

than a grit city that keeps its

bourgeoisie on a leash like a pit bull.

Tacoma is a sense of humor.

Once you get that, it may take decades,

you'll understand everything. I

mean, really, after embedding

yourself in a group of eccentrics

at the Parkway, the Acme, or

the Goldfish Redux taverns, you'll see

the folly in naming streets

and other ambitions. You'll realize

you are Nobody, the only person

ever to beat Tacoma. Good night.

© a month ago    cities • aliens   

From a Diary of the Plague Year (5)

Someone said to someone
as they walked by at the appropriate
pandemical remove, "Why
isn't the inactivity more uncontrived?"

The other person replied, "Is that
really what it said?"

As I was already uncontagiously
past them, I had to make up answers:
"Because we're dealing with actors" and
"No, but that's what she said it said."

Anti-social distancing is turning my life
into a French experimental film
from 1977. I'm grateful.


hans ostrom 2020

City Fixer

I went around the city
fixing things today.
With my wrench, I fixed
a tree, tightening its
branches. I advised
a tall building on how
to improve its posture.

One of the parks was
badly fractured. I used
special bolts to mend it.
Logic dictated that I
give food to a hungry
woman. I tried to

spray the mayor
with political  disinfectant
but was rebuffed. Now
I'm conducting an ad
hoc choir on the
underground train,
for as you know the noise
of the metro begs
for assistance. Citizens,
I am here for you.



hans ostrom 2019

Respectfully Absurd

Rituals of remembrance,

so weary, so salty-sweet.

Beside an open grave,

someone says words 

about a dead man whose

corpse lies in a manufactured

box nearby. The memories

of him will never be riper

than they are now. No one

will think to recall him after

a few months, it not days, if

not . . . Even at the moment

how many listeners are 

thinking of other things, 

or wondering what the point

of funeral services is? "Funeral

services" has the ring 

of American assembly lines. 

That's all right. The frail,

exhausted nobility of mournful

practices preserves their worth.

They're respectfully absurd.

hans ostrom 2019

The Stolen Bin

In news of crime
in privileged places,
somebody stole
my recycling bin.

I'm a longtime
recycler. Hey, I
joined Friends of
the Earth in 1971.

(A lot of good that
did.) I did not know
until today about the
big Black Market

in big blue bins.
Maybe the thieves
sought in scraps
some digits with

which to go all
vampire on my
bloody accounts.
Instead they will

paw as I did through
unsolicited fliers
and mass-mailings.
I said to myself,

bereft of my bin,
"Why would anyone
want to . . ."--and
stopped. Why would

anyone want to
wreck the Earth?
We're way beyond
such questions.

hans ostrom 2019

Inside the Cake

Tonight I feel as if
I'm inside an invisible
cake. Reality cake.

I didn't have anything
to do with baking
a cake. I don't know

who baked it, or if
it just baked itself.
I'm simply inside the

cake. Tonight that's
all right. I don't have
to know why the

cake exists or why
I am inside it or why
reality is this cakiness.



hans ostrom

Concerning Me and a Concept Called You

Like you I was in space today,
moving around on what some call
Earth.  The Chinese in Mandarin
call it tu, with a diacritic mark
over the u, a parenthesis lying
on its back, looking up at the sky.

Evolution means the weather
can seem calibrated perfectly
to me (and you) and me (and you)
to the weather.  A peace treaty
signed by molecules. Can be
revoked at any time.

After work, I returned
to the circumstance by which
regardless of how much humans
learn, certain fundamental
mysteries will not yield,
such as what's the all about?--
this moving around on a
matter-ball that spins and tilts
and orbits and has an indigestive core
of molten stuff.



hans ostrom 

Phone Nightspot

Weird night: went to this small
dark bistro, got inside--no one there
but a bartender texting on her phone.

The tables were empty except
for mobile phones, some propped,
some lying flat, two or three or

four per table.  One table had just
one phone--sad. I put my phone
on that table so the two could

get to know each other. Went
to the bar, ordered a bourbon,
and said to the woman,

"Start a tab, please, and I'm
buying a round for them all."
Her look soured. The phones

started to buzz, ring, sing,
jangle, and melodize. I said,
"Cheers," and lifted my glass.



hans ostrom 2017

Ghosthood

I'll tell you what it's like to be a ghost:
No one sees you.  If you talk, people
don't hear. They will not see you wave.
The apparitional circumstance
is worse than loneliness. It is

to experience nothing.  It is to be
the consciousness of No. Being a ghost
is like wandering an Earth covered
with desert.  It is the desolation
of an infinite bleached sky.


hans ostrom 2017

The Revision

It's the end of the semester. The last essay is due
to me, professor. He, student, misses the final class
and struggles to my office afterwards. He stands
in the doorway, exhausted, and tells me his dream:

"Somehow you'd gotten hold of my essay
before I wanted to turn it in. You assigned
it a grade of the square-root of A. Your
only comment was Very suburban. Then I
stole back the essay before you had
recorded the grade.  I put an A in
the online grading system, next to my name,
and then I watched as the essay
revised itself, prose metamorphosis."

"I'll be darned," I say.  He gives me
the essay.  I look at it.  "Well," I say,
"you'd better put your name on it"



hans ostrom 2017

It's Not Like the End of the World is the End of the World or Anything

Just before he went to sleep,
the world ended.  Well, began
to end: it's quite a process, after all
(and After All). He stayed awake
that night, finally slept a couple hours
as the sun rose  The wailing and yelling
coming from other abodes woke him.
He wondered if he was expected at work--
and what was in the cupboard
that might comprise supper?
It was just as he expected: even
when the world ends,
a person must plod on.


hans ostrom 2017

Intriguing Employment Opportunities

Lead Evaporator.
Geological Psychologist ["Rock Therapist"]
Undercover Vegan
Atheist Pastry Chef
Theoretical Maid
Workplace Boor (Trainee)
Senior Skeptic
Managing Drifter
Erotic Data Analyst.


hans ostrom 2017

We Had a Good Morning

We had it good there for a while,
saying tuna implies blue
and shirt suggests sadness.
For most of the morning, mist
and tree remained a single entity.

The pickled, packaged voices
of information streaming through devices?
We re-deployed them as sound collages.
By late afternoon, windows re-
solidified, and reporting sports

scores seemed to be a rational
activity.  Life became plain
and tepid once more. Dogged
and sullen we set out our clothes
for the work-week ahead.


hans ostrom 2016

Answer Sampler

I've prepared several answers

for you in the unlikely event

we meet and you feel like

posing questions.  Here's a 

five-piece sampler:

"Yes, the U.S. is a racist shit

hole"; "ten minutes"; "zinnias";

"Frederick Douglass"; "maybe."

hans ostrom 2016

Singing the Marine's Hymn When I Was Nine

Grades 3,4, and 5 occupied
the same room, and the teacher combined
us to have us sing "The Marines Hymn." Later,
Andre Breton's "Surrealist Manifesto"
provided a context for the experience.

The teacher didn't explain why
the Marines had occupied the Halls
of Montezuma (were they working
for Cortez?) or where the shores
of Tripoli were. Lots of Italians

had settled in Gold Rush country,
so I guessed Italy. Hey, teachers
do things to survive the teaching
because every day they have to
establish a new beach-head.

The tune seemed terribly tedious,
and it knew so: the key-change
if often a tell. Hell, yes, we
wanted to be sent on a mission:
recess.


hans ostrom 2015

Where Did Everybody Go, Anyway?

This place got quiet all of a sudden.
People I guess are off taking photos
of their meals and posting them
on Boastface.com. Probably lots

are gathering to tweet
about comic-book heroes played
in movies by weird little
celebrities. I think

all of this is fine, just
fine. Or I don't think
it's fine. Mere opinions are
exalted on the human stage.


hans ostrom 2015

"Please Rate Your User Experience"

He was asked, by a machine, to rate
his user experience. He did not rate it.
He was asked by advertising, government,
and media (which formed a single entity)
to believe what he heard, saw, and read.
He did not comply. He did read
labels on jars. He turned away.

He liked green light in corridors
as well as green corridors well lit.

He rarely mourned the loss of a
narrative thread. He thought
there was a sense in which
plots should be broken.

Where was John? Where
is John? Is his name
really John, or is it Ian
or Juan? Where is anybody?
Is this the . . .? No,
it isn't. Thinking about it,

he thought his user experience
was inconsequential. The rating-system
did not accommodate such thinking.
Meanwhile, he was trying to break
himself from the habit of thinking,
"What is to be done?"


hans ostrom 2015

"Of the Socks"

Someone's wearing the socks I almost bought.
I wonder how they're doing.

Does he, or someone, launder them well?
Have they been separated in the sock-drawer--
or bound to unfamiliar others?

Yes, of course, I totally agree
that it is lunacy

to dwell on items not purchased,
to conjure a rival. Honest, I promise
to ponder critical issues later.

Sometimes, you know, socks
are listed under "accessories."
Preposterous. I think

I will call the fellow now.
I'm calling him. He's answering

wearing only those socks.
It's disgusting. I characterize
him as a fool. Oh, yes,

I characterize freely. He demands
to know who I am. I hang up.

I'm wearing a business suit.
I feel authoritative in it.
Except I'm barefoot.



hans ostrom 2014

"Hinge Collection," by Hans Ostrom

Of course, this is just part
of my collection of hinges.

But it may give you some idea
of the variety and kinds of
hinges,
of their ubiquity, of the
range of their design.

Also, you will likely note that,
unattached to anything
and without box, door, or shutter,
hinges become absurd.

Sometimes I think they
look like awful jewelry
or modestly successful
instruments of annoyance.
I hate them so, my hinges.

hans ostrom 2014

"Radar Songs," by Hans Ostrom

Airline attendants walk among us,
angels of the Aisle. They draw
lines on air and attend to them.
They feed us nectar and encrypt

aluminum dreams. We're the departed,
scheduled to arrive at a gate
leading anywhere. Airline attendants
speak hypothetically of a

"water landing," which is more
of a problem than a seat-cushion
can solve. Fasten your seat-belts,
Believers, and fly fascinated!

Resort to destinations
and leave your baggage unclaimed. Let
it ride like an old symbol
around the dream-slow carousel,

which implies that all human activity
proves to be absurd eventually
if not sooner. That is why airline
attendants will dance

around the Control Tower
tonight (whisper: tonight!),
raising a chorus
of radar songs.

hans ostrom 2014