"Expect Delays," by Hans Ostrom

"Canal Dream," by Hans Ostrom

Oh, lovely nightmare
of the canal and futile,
panicked paddling, I do
love to wake from you
with you. A film

of absurd residue
coats my grogged
consciousness. You
depart like a cool
lover. I get up and

get into a day,
which joins other
days I haven't understood.
Dearest canal-nightmare,

you're so easy
by contrast to these
lived days. I enjoy
working with you.


hans ostrom 2014

"She's Checking," by Hans Ostrom

in the Parkway Tavern, Tacoma,
i'd been drinking lemonade
for a half-hour or so.

a different waitress
came to the table. i
wondered if waitresses
and waiters like
to be called servers
now or not. i kept
this question to myself.

anyway, she said,
"what are you drinking?"
i said, "lemonade."
she said, "we don't have
lemonade." i said,
"i have been drinking
lemonade." she said,
"well, i'll check."



hans ostrom

"I Saw a Man Pursuing the Horizon," by Stephen Crane

"The Trafficiad," Hans Ostrom

Re-posting one from several years ago. Dedicated to all commuters.

You've Been One of Those

After you don't, in fact, get it
done, or after they don't let you in,
you sit at a table and look across
at yourself. You stare, shrug, and smile.

For you know it's all been a comedy,
a practical joke:
you knocked on a door and produced
no sound, then found out
it was the wrong door anyway.

You then come to think that
you've been one of those
who sometimes help others
get what they want to do done,
who hear the knocking
and open up.


hans ostrom 2014

Time to Move

When Daddy started growing antlers
out of his temples,
we decided it was time
to move away from Chemical County.

After they were arrested
and held without bail or a
hearing in a converted warehouse,
one of them had the idea
of reciting Eisenhower's
speech about the military-
industrial complex. They did.
They recited it. And then
they were moved to another
facility. Facility.

After she attempted to burn
all my clothes and kept
leaving cat-carcasses
on my doorstep, I decided
it might be time
to make the move of
re-thinking our relationship.

She shouted as loud as she
could at the people, and they
obviously did not hear her,
so it was then that she knew
she had moved into
a ghost's existence. Which
was fine with her.



hans ostrom 2013

"Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow," by William Shakespeare

Hello, Everything

Hey, Hello, Everything, I said,
trying to be polite.
Hi, Everything said, I'm busy.

Hey, Everything, I said,
I've worked in a pickle factory,
I've worked in a gravel plant,

I've pounded nails and washed pots
and taught rich kids and
dug trenches and written articles--

--Who cares? said Everything.
Everybody does something and there's not
much difference between

any of it. Oh, I said. Well,
how are things with you,
Everything? I'm always

changing, and I have to go,
and you're a loser and small,
said Everything. Bye.



hans ostrom 2013

The Topic of Your Thighs

Your thighs are and are not
like warm, supple glass. They
make me think of seven golden
horses galloping across a field
of black grass; thus, I must

disrupt the senator's speech--
and instantly find myself
stopped, frisked, tazed,
Mirandized, Godoted, Kafkaed,
NSAed, SWATted, and entered

into the system. Why, why
did I stray
from
the topic of your thighs?




hans ostrom 2013

The Back-And-Forth

They forced him
to go shopping
but he got back
at them by having
all their memos
drained from
his consciousness.




hans ostrom 2013

Financial Advice

"Mr. Debit, we advise you to put part
of yourself in stocks and part in bonds.
These punishments should occur in the
Town Square, as penance for your miserable
money-managing skills, and as an example
to all. Unfortunately, your folio seems
never to have left port. It's taking on water
and barnacles. Our projections indicate

you'll be able to retire uncomfortably
when all the mountains run into the sea.
By then, the National Economy
shall have melted, leaving a residue
of prosperity. In those far-off days,

travel by burro, but don't go near
the fortresses of the mega-rich
and super-celebrated. From bastions,
their minions will train designer-weapons
on you. You must understand that from
the wealthy's point of view, few
things drive down property-values
more than semi-retired, Quixotic
geezers sitting atop humble beasts.

Currently, your liquid assets fit
into a shot-glass and may be
downed in one gulp. Among
your liabilities is you. Please
try harder to be a credit to
yourself. Crawl low. Pray high,
and, incidentally, fuck you."

copyright 2013 hans ostrom

Overheard: It Changes, and It's Changing

The problem with
having everything online
is that it changes
all the time, and
it's changing.



--Hans Ostrom 2013

Found Poem: They're All Dead, Ashes

Message on my phone
when I arrived home that
I was late for the grooming
appointment for my animals.
They'll be hard to groom.
They're all dead, ashes.....



found Feb. 27 2013
hans ostrom 2013

No Answer to the Ocean

It's like this, maybe: A tide comes in.


It brings things you come to believe.


There they are, objects on glassy sand.


They're what's come of all your coping.


A stone, a crab-shell, a worn piece of


wood, a string of kelp. They're no answer


to the ocean. They don't add up to a code.



You keep walking on the beach,


trying to figure things out. There's


nothing wrong with that--walking,


wondering. What are you hoping for?





Hans Ostrom

Mentioned Honorably

This is to inform
you that you received
an Honorable Mention
in the recent publication,
Who's Who In Global Obscurity.


hans ostrom 2013

The Economy Needs the Poor

“The economy needs the poor,” says

a wee lad  on the precipice of a bachelor

of arts in economics to me. He’s the son

of some remote dickhead CEO in France

One of the brightest students I’ve ever taught,

a Black and Latina woman from

Oakland (she likes the 49ers, I like the

Raiders, we riff on that) says, “The

political science students on campus

are the least culturally competent—

they’re not equipped for this society.”

Today, this month, November 2012,

I think, well, Whiteness will have its

way: cocaine-speed-meth capitalism, fuck-you-

we’re going to fucking war, if you’re a

thinking person, then go fuck yourself,

we will dominate you, we always have,

so suck our illiterate radioactive dicks.

 

Old, I wish to God it would be different

for the thinking young I know.  You don’t

know how much I wish that this were so.

I wish God would empower them.

And then I look at the mainstream shit

they all must countenance, and I think,

“God damn it, the demons have won.

The motherfucking super-rich have won.”

Hans Ostrom, 2012

Bless Meaninglessness

God bless meaningless noise people
make, such as, "I knew I shouldn't have
trusted February" or "the piece that I'm
not seeing is some kind of evaluative
framework" or "How can people not
get that?" The froth of not-meaning's

whipped up into magnificent meringue
sculptures.  I walk among them all day--
the fantastic shapes! I say little in response
Maybe "interesting" or "wow,
really?" or a well placed, "Good grief,
let's hope it turns out all right."

I can pretend to understand just
enough to escape scrutiny. Then
I must come home and rest, maybe
read a detective novel, in which
the world represented coheres
and meaning means. Out there

online, at work, and in the public
sphere, people say and write a
great many things which neither
swing nor mean a thing. God bless
them and that noise.


Hans Ostrom, 2012

And So It Begins--the Semester, That Is

I'm re-posting a short poem to mark the beginning of the semester or quarter at many colleges.

"Dialogue on a College Campus"

The Situation

even if you believe in a
divine ordering, you have to feel
the absurdity of our wee
ball-bearing, which spins
in a corner of infinity.
there's no way

to make sense of the situation,
so you just live in the situation
as you find it. i will not say God

isn't. how could i know that?
us and our "minds": ha!

this is one unfathomable
situation, this situation of
ours, for sure.


Copyright 2012 Hans Ostrom