Showing posts with label blues. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blues. Show all posts
Friday, November 28, 2025
Friday, November 21, 2025
Friday, October 24, 2025
Saturday, October 11, 2025
Monday, October 6, 2025
Tuesday, September 23, 2025
Sunday, September 14, 2025
Saturday, August 23, 2025
Friday, August 1, 2025
Monday, July 28, 2025
Sunday, July 20, 2025
Monday, February 24, 2025
Saturday, November 11, 2023
One-Year Old Henry's Blues
... start with a higher-
pitched whine followed by grumbleslow, real low: fussy
Sunday, October 15, 2023
Bayou Blues
Sulfur yellow sky
seals in obese,humid air.
Just sitting on
our slumped porch,
us, still we sweat creeks.
A sick boat motor
coughs over there
on the bayou canal.
A sedan drives up.
Looks like a Fed car.
Our neighbors scatter
like water drops
on a griddle. We
have to breathe
this air. We have
to breathe this
here hot, wet air.
hans ostrom 2023
Monday, April 10, 2023
Friday, March 24, 2023
Blue Vine
Sinister blue vine
In the jungle of your mind
Reaching out to pull you in
Drag you down to blues again.
Sinister blue vine.
I am ashamed
To feel so bad
When life's all right
And things are fine.
Still sometimes sadness
Smothers me
Like a wicked jungle vine--
A sinister blue vine.
It grabs and grips you
On your path
And pulls you off
Your daily way.
It wraps you in
Its greasy branches
Sinks you, drowns you
In quicksand day.
Sinister blue vine
In the jungle of your mind
Reaching out to pull you in
Drag you down to blues again.
Sinister blue vine.
Grab a machete
Cut and slash
Rip away that awful vine
Find that path
Too feeling fine.
Damn that sinister blue vine.
hans ostrom 2023
Wednesday, June 24, 2020
"Phantom Blues"
A couple years ago I posted a short poem called "Phantom Blues," and I made a recording/video of it. So there's that. Apologies to Taj Mahal, who has an album called Phantom Blues. And apparently there's a Phantom Blues Band.
a link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT9EzML0zhY
a link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT9EzML0zhY
Thursday, October 31, 2019
Bourbon Street Blues
Bourbon Street's a nightmare
the subconscious mind refused
to publish: too obvious. Frat boys,
sorority royalty, and benumbed
conventioneers move through
the neon chute like cattle. Some
of them yell as if yelling had
just been invented.
To thrive, the clubs must be
as loud as train wrecks. Batter
their ears, three-personed band.
At 4:00 a..m. there's a funeral
for moonlight smothered by clouds.
Sex workers and pickpockets
count their wages. Obligato
snarls from a fat motorcycle
finish off kitschy rituals.
Solo buskers and Black kids
who beat on plastic buckets
make the only tunes worth
listening to. People make
a living here. That's the point,
really the only point.
hans ostrom 2019
the subconscious mind refused
to publish: too obvious. Frat boys,
sorority royalty, and benumbed
conventioneers move through
the neon chute like cattle. Some
of them yell as if yelling had
just been invented.
To thrive, the clubs must be
as loud as train wrecks. Batter
their ears, three-personed band.
At 4:00 a..m. there's a funeral
for moonlight smothered by clouds.
Sex workers and pickpockets
count their wages. Obligato
snarls from a fat motorcycle
finish off kitschy rituals.
Solo buskers and Black kids
who beat on plastic buckets
make the only tunes worth
listening to. People make
a living here. That's the point,
really the only point.
hans ostrom 2019
Monday, July 29, 2019
Dog in the Rain
Sometimes you feel like a dog in the rain.
Right at that point when the dog's
too tired to make its fur
shake off water. When the dog
aches to smell warmth
and what's hiding inside it.
The dog knows that if going
inside will happen,
it won't be soon because
dogs smell time and know
such things. So the dog
lowers its head and keeps
going to where clouds fall
apart and it can lift up its head again.
hans ostrom 2019
Right at that point when the dog's
too tired to make its fur
shake off water. When the dog
aches to smell warmth
and what's hiding inside it.
The dog knows that if going
inside will happen,
it won't be soon because
dogs smell time and know
such things. So the dog
lowers its head and keeps
going to where clouds fall
apart and it can lift up its head again.
hans ostrom 2019
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
Dutiful Blues
He saw that she,
like him, was locked
into an acceptable life
that held no interest
anymore. They
exchanged polite
comments, maybe
at a cafe or on the job.
The glances they
shared never found
words because words
can involve truth
and risk. Each had
decided to plod
along their separate,
acceptable paths.
Both were made sluggish
by the weight of
boredom and
frustration. Their
existential crisis remained
bland--never boiled over.
Poignant that both
saw in the other a case
of the dutiful blues.
hans ostrom 2018
like him, was locked
into an acceptable life
that held no interest
anymore. They
exchanged polite
comments, maybe
at a cafe or on the job.
The glances they
shared never found
words because words
can involve truth
and risk. Each had
decided to plod
along their separate,
acceptable paths.
Both were made sluggish
by the weight of
boredom and
frustration. Their
existential crisis remained
bland--never boiled over.
Poignant that both
saw in the other a case
of the dutiful blues.
hans ostrom 2018
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