My Location Can't Be Found

I asked my phone where I was.
I mean, I knew where I was
according to old customs
but I wanted to know my location
according to rules set out
by our minders, the satellites.

The phone said "your location
can't be found." I didn't care
where I was anymore. I cared
that things seemed to be going
all right, what with my still
breathing and all. My phone

was not connected to the line
on which I thought I was. The
Great Online. What's more
chaotic than connectivity?
Ask your phone. Its answer
will be evasive.


hans ostrom 2019

Ubiquitous Opacity

In digitized society, we know
people we don't know, and we
don't know people we do know.

Things are made to seem
as if they're happening.

We're distracted from perceiving
much of what is happening.

In high definition we encounter
ubiquitous opacity.



hans ostrom 2017

Where Did Everybody Go, Anyway?

This place got quiet all of a sudden.
People I guess are off taking photos
of their meals and posting them
on Boastface.com. Probably lots

are gathering to tweet
about comic-book heroes played
in movies by weird little
celebrities. I think

all of this is fine, just
fine. Or I don't think
it's fine. Mere opinions are
exalted on the human stage.


hans ostrom 2015

This Digitation

An ant on a twig in a flood
can't conceptualize all that wet
force, nor can I even fake-imagine,
that is to say bullshit my way through,
what this digitation of being-human
is-or-means. My eyes and hands

sometimes attach themselves
(they are mammalian)
to that screen or this, and
this touch-screen or that
keyboard are twigs in the
something, which is of a something
else inside a whatever it may be,
which is purveyed retailishly.  

I'm no more than a furloughed
extra in one of coding's lesser
dreams. Maybe you're an electric
fruit-fly, nothing personal. Maybe
we're real holograms, or holygrams,
merely faking ironic asides on
shit they call social media.

Perhaps most happenings now
pour forth frothily from corporate
virtualizers. That G to the P to the S
can pin my point doesn't mean
I'm being or that I'm found.


Hans Ostrom, 2012