Man In Store Standing In Front of Mops

Lots of mops for sale, I see.

Some end in rectangular sponges
(harvested from rectangular seas?).

Some end in wigs of rope, some
in plastic absences to be filled by
the legendary "sold separately."

If I stand by these mops too long,
I'll worry someone. But where would
I go? Not to the meat department,

certainly not to the carnival
of cereal boxes full of sugar.
Perhaps to red fruits and green

vegetables? For now I'll stand
and stare, thinking of my grimy
floor, and I will try "acting normal"--

a strange state of being.

hans ostrom

A Common Form of Alienation

I'm a common stock in search
of a future. A laugh looking
for a joke. A surrender seeking
a peace offering. A seduced
yearning for seduction. I'm a
blank in search of a blank.
A past that's lost its present.
I'm a solution without its
problem, and that's a problem.


hans ostrom 2020

Plausible

Wind so hard the lake-surface bristles, and because the word
Saturday appears above a box representing a date, the person,
categorized as a man, is not somewhere else but here, for
even in so called off hours everyone is regulated. He's

hunched inside a coat, hearing wind so hard it whistles
through reed stalks and he notes he can't distinguish
between a vaguely recalled sadness and this day's
specific one, as if all pumice-gray clouds were one smear

across one sky he's lived under, wind so hard his ears
ache, and he knows eventually he'll do something called
"the sensible thing," and his legs will move him toward
something called a "house," but he like standing in muck

near the whipped up lake because standing here seems
like the one thing that hasn't been arbitrarily labeled,
wind so hard now his nose runs, and he mutters,
"whatever you say," which encapsulates what he's felt

like saying to everything from STOP-signs to tweets
to good-mornings to cityscapes and his own name
and all the names for things, including life--life?
Whatever you say, wind so hard it blows a bird

sideways and the man's chilled deep and grateful
for that and walks buffeted back toward sensible
things, wind so hard it's almost but not quite
made life plausible today.


hans ostrom 2016

Our Days to Get Through

Everybody has a day to get through.
It may look like other people's days
to other people, but no: each person's
particulars make the day unique. Many
days I don't feel like I've known anyone,
and each time I feel that differently.


hans ostrom 2016

Surrounding You

Fresh oxygen in cool air surrounds you
as do social contracts pulling you
into roles that weary and bore you.

Don't whine, even to no one,
you tell yourself, for you've
imported voices that force

conformity and sustain shame.
To the end, you'll be maneuvered
into doing shit you don't want to do.

Some of it may be necessary,
but not that much. Who needs
a dictator when people volunteer

to push each other around? No
wonder so many drop out any way they
can, often desperately, paced suicide.



hans ostrom 2015

"Place in the Space"

He needed something to take him away
From the place in the space called
His head. Not escape; no, a shift
Into a perspective that stuff didn’t
Stick to too much. Such as scenes
Of injustice (the same kinds
Of the people that were treated
As not-people are treated as not-
People today; if you, he thought,
Read, see, and listen, you will
Know this and so not deny it
I can't deny it, it sticks),
Yes, stick to too much,
Does the stuff, such as
By-now distilled toxic memories
Of personal shame and failure, failure
And shame and stupidities
And permanent confusions
But also excessively incisive
Insights (such as this whole
Fucking operation is a scam
and I must pretend it isn't).
Listlessness full of dread,
Dreadful despair result
From the sticking-to of stuff,
So now yes he need something to
Take him away from the place
In the space called who he is.


hans ostrom 2015

It's a Curious Thing

There are some people
(I’m one) who negotiate
their membership
in the family they’re
born into. They get by.

They continue to cope
and manage as they
move through other groups—
schools and jobs,
communities. But they
never belong. They’re
not exactly loners or
outcasts. In a way,
that would be easier–
the lines sharp.

They always feel
themselves to be
provisional members,
probationary,
forever trying to figure out
the rules and codes,
always and ultimately
awkward, no matter
how “successful.” This is no

complaint, only observation.
It is the shape of the path
for some of us—that’s all.
It is a curious thing, that’s all.


Hans Ostrom, 2013