Turn in Your Keys

The Ministry of Smaller Items
asks you, citizen, to turn in all
your older keys. The large ones
that used to open castles and tombs.

The saw-toothed ones that once
ruled the world of locked doors,
commercial and domestic.
The tiny ones that opened small,
shy boxes and secret handcuffs.

Such keys cannot communicate
through air or make locks chirp,
click, or tick. They cannot read
our thoughts or leave a trail
for our dear algorithms to follow.

As our Premier has said, "Old
is dangerous. New will save us!."
Yes, we are going to need you
to turn in your keys.

2023

"Hammer," by Carl Sandburg

Recording/video of short poem by Carl Sandburg, "Hammer."  Link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYxTInrG-bE

Cool Reaper

We who will be harvested
are understandably grim
about the prospect. That
doesn't mean the reaper--
constant change--is grim.

The reaper's merely
impersonal, although our
misery is not. That
coolness chills the blade
and menaces the hopeful,
who are hopeless.


hans ostrom 2016

"It Will Not Change," by Sara Teasdale

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

Nothing Less

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Nothing Less

On the brink of exhausting the Earth, it's
past time to re-think, don't you think?
The scandals of nuclear weapons,
starvation, species eradication. Chasms
between rich and poor . . . . Nothing less
than a revolution of spirit shall suffice.
The age seems to beg for moral transformation,
by which we agree to think ahead by centuries,
not quarter-years.  Short-term profits
shall be anathema. A certain selflessness
must obtain. We have to mine it within
ourselves. It's there. Refine it--that ore
known by an old-fashioned name, virtue.
Nothing less than a revolution of the spirit
shall suffice, I think, when I think twice.


Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom

What Was That Thing?

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Song: What Was That Thing?

What was that thing
I tried to forget?
If I could recall,
I'd be glad to regret.

What was that thing
I always desired?
Seems I forgot
What I required.

What was that grudge
I used to hold?
Seems that slow smolder
went quickly cold.

Things move on down to
where flood meets sea,
a delta-land
of used-to-be.

A delta-land
of used-to-be
frees you from you
and me from me.

What was that hate
that drove me blind?
How did that love
turn me so kind?

What were those plans
I once held dear?
Hey, life came by,
changed There to Here.

Who was that I
Who once was me?
He tried too hard,
now lets it be.

Time flows through space
like silt to sea--
a delta-land,
believe you me:

a delta-land
of used-to-be
frees you from you
and me from me.


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom