"Stayin' Warm In A Cold Snap," by Hans Ostrom, Lyrics, and Darby Drake, ...

"A Cart to Cart Talk," by Hans Ostrom, Lyrics, and Hal W. Greene (Music)

"A Single Solitary Cowboy Boot," by Hans Ostrom (Lyrics) and Winn Roarbu...

"The Son She Never Had," by Hans Ostrom (Lyrics) and Danielle Aldolona (...

"Like a Dog Outside a Bar," by Hans Ostrom (Lyrics) and Reno Mapes (Music).

"Oh, Those Regrets," by Hans Ostrom (Lyrics), and Dalton Bridgewright

"Take Care of the Country in Country Music," by Hans Ostrom (Lyrics) and...

"It's Strange on the Range," by Hans Ostrom (Lyrics) and the Wesley Jack...

"His Haunted Song," by Hans Ostrom (Lyrics) and the Fred Fairclaw Band.

"Come All the Way Back," by Hans Ostrom (Lyrics) and Ivan Blackoak (vocals)

"Put a Ring on My Ring Finger," by Roger Illsley

Amerikan Cattle Drive

 In this space-open-wide, sky is burnished, air is rare, dust is unto.

Ranging earth whirls up, hooves percussing, trail's a-risin’.

And the drive is driven toward

a Chicago abbatoir at the end of the loaned prayerie.

In this wide-eyed, yippie-eye-ay, comma-space, in this spaced

TexiCaliKansas range, there is rounding, there is up,

there is longing, and there's horning.

There is brand-name-recognition

        for those steaks and roasts, those drive-in

        burgers for burghers, those leather

        shoes and boots and belts. 

The Infinite Lored Cattle Drive pours/roars on through fissures 

twixt history and mountains, unsettlers and originals

            and fishers of men and women and beasts and burdens.

Every horse has a history, every cow has a price, every

woman has an axe, every badge has a bullet, every

man has a man saying {Man, you're in my way.}

Unholster your history, it's time to ride.  Look over stampede's

boiling nation of hooves and horns.  Sunlight mounts a fence.

American women and men stand staring composed upon

a hill without a city.  See them, just west of where

they are. Now your great gathered herd

goes all to sky, and the loop of your lasso makes an {O

bury me not. . . .}, and ghost riders burst through clouds.

hans ostrom 2025

Mutant Country-Song

When it all falls apart
and I'm lying on my deathbed,
I hope the Lord'll forgive me for
what flashes through my head.

"I hope someone's getting laid,"
for example. Or "I hate Nashville
worse than bosses." Or "I don't
think God gives two shits about
your politics--or your religion."
And, of course, "Ouch, that hurts
like a motherfu--."

[Docking complete: begin transfer
of pickup truck (old), farm, train,
mama, daddy, pretty girl, "darlin'", 
we, they, goodbye, dancin', 
hungover, fishin', gospel.]

I hope the Lord'll forgive me
for what may flash through my head
when everything falls apart and
I'm lying on my deathbed--or

on a couch, a highway, grass,
the crapper (Elvis!), a stretcher,
or a woman (darlin').


hans ostrom 2016