Overheard in an Airport Security Line

 "And I'm, like, look! Oh, gross!"

                    *
"Believe it. Reincarnation is real."
                    *
"Her boss says she needs to learn
more aout what she's selling so she
can sell more of what she's trying
to sell."
                  *
"When we get to Tijuana, we should
rent a Mazerati."
                  *
"I'm not sure why I travel anymore."

Hans Ostrom 2024

Dramatic Noise

/
/
/
/

Dramatic Noise

in the next motel
room, someone's
talking, with volume,
on a telephone.

words get stripped
of their wordness
as they pass through
stuccoed sheet rock.

so what i
hear sounds like
the intense language
of a huge insect

that is related
to a small
electric drill.
it's fascinating.

there's drama
in this noise.
hearing the words
would diminish

that. the noise can
be an argument
about anything.
i'm sad when

the sound stops
and the walls
of the room
i am in begin

to advance on
me, flashing their badges
of splendid, cheap
mass-produced art.


Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom

Reciprocity

*
*
*
*
*
According to the OED online, here is what "eavesdrop" means (not a surprising definition):

"To stand within the ‘eavesdrop’ of a house in order to listen to secrets; hence, to listen secretly to private conversation."

The earliest quoted example in the OED is from 1606, in case anyone asks or happens to be eavesdropping when you are discussing the word.
*
*

Reciprocity


A man stepped out of a cafe,
holding a telephone-wafer
to one ear. I assumed he
left so as to be polite,
to secure a less fully
public space, and/or to
align the wafer with a
floating satellite. I
was already outside.

"In life," he said to
someone--and to anyone
within earshot, including
me, "there is a concept
called, 'reciprocity.'"

He paused to listen before
defining the term for his
intended interlocutor. Before
I began seriously to eavesdrop,
I left him to his conversation.

*
*
Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom