1971: Ernie's Epiphany

A massive black car rocks like a boat
as it roars down a dirt road on bald tires.
The driver's shirtless, stoned, and drunk
in desert heat. He smokes a cigarette
with one eye scrunched against the smoke.

He becomes aware he's barreling
down a road, eating dust, sucking
smoke, smelling like a goat,
and seeing double. Also, the radio's
just died. He pulls over

and stops, kills the engine. The
cloud of dust passes by. He listens
to the desert singing scorched blues.

He rests his head on the hot
black steering wheel--which
now seems to him an absurd
auto part. Out loud he says,

"I don't know what I'm doing
or why." Pause. "Well, I guess
that's a confession to build on.
He opens the glove box,
shoves the unloaded pistol
aside, and takes out a map.

Galleries of Grit

Desert winds compulsively

sculpt sand. Abstract shapes
rise up, find edges, façades,

contours--then serve up all

they are unto the sculpting force.

 

The cosmic tourists--sun and stars

and moon--oversee these galleries

of grit, where place is art.

air's genius, and illusion

of form never tires ore expires. 

hans ostrom 2022

For 8

Between the celebrities 7 and 9,

you work quietly like the people who
keep societies going: parents, farmers,
masons, plumbers, janitors, maids,
nurses, teachers,....

Infinity, standing up. Something,
born of two nothings.

In a dream, I walked into a mild
desert and found an octagon, entered.
There were musicians playing,
and dancing, and warm laughter
at the edges, and eight blue
mountains in the distance.

hans ostrom 2022

Jealous Desert

walking in a desert

looking for, smelling for,

water, honey, and home--

the desert is home--

look, there's a bone

that once was part

of one who walked

here: here goes on

as it went even when

water covered it.

walking the desert.

it is jealous of water. 

hans ostrom 2021

"Desert," by Josephine Miles

Reading/video of a short poem by Miles (1911-1985), who was a remarkable poet and scholar--and a remarkable person. In childhood she was afflicted with severe arthritis, and as an adult she had highly limited use of her hands, legs, and feet. I saw her read at the University of California, Davis, and an assistant carried her into the room. The reading was great. She graduated from high school in Los Angeles--John Cage was a classmate. She earned a B.A. in English at UCLA and a Ph.D. at Berkeley, where she taught her whole career. She pioneered quantitative research in the humanities, and using a punch-card computer, published a concordance to the poetry of John Dryden. Her own poetry garnered her much acclaim. She was an early supporter of Beat poetry and helped Alan Ginsberg get Howl published. She was especially interested in different modes of diction in modern poetry.

link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd-JZHpF7pc

Salted Desert

Desolation amidst abundance:
the United States,
permanently warped by white
supremacy, mad with virulent
greed and perverse religion,
addicted to violence, proud
of ignorance. The salted
desert of its soul grows vast.



hans ostrom 2017

Ghosthood

I'll tell you what it's like to be a ghost:
No one sees you.  If you talk, people
don't hear. They will not see you wave.
The apparitional circumstance
is worse than loneliness. It is

to experience nothing.  It is to be
the consciousness of No. Being a ghost
is like wandering an Earth covered
with desert.  It is the desolation
of an infinite bleached sky.


hans ostrom 2017

Looking for Stephen Crane

"I want to know where
Stephen Crane is!" shouted
a man in the desert, which
was not obliged to reply.

"Get back in the car!" cried
a woman from a black,
courageous Buick
on a highway a few
paces away from the man.



hans ostrom 2015

"In the Desert," by Stephen Crane

Desert Tale

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Whew! I'm trying to keep up with this National Poetry Month poem-a-day regime, but it's not as easy as it looks.


Desert Tale

A stone rings with heat in the desert. A
lizard answers the stone, speaking in tongue.
On the other end of the line is the Sun.
After ringing off, the lizard does push-ups,
then runs away to tell other reptiles
all the hot gossip. After sundown,

a coyote lopes out of a gulch, uses
the same stone, which is still warm,
to call the Moon, which wishes all
the mammals well, predator and prey
alike. After talking with the Moon,
the coyote yip-yips contentedly
across cooling sand.


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom