Read and See

I decided to do a recorded reading/video of "Read and See," which responds to Aaron Douglas's famous painting/mural (in oil), "Aspiration" (1936).

link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGe5QCQBaKU

Read and See

re-posting one from 2017

("Aspiration," painted by Aaron Douglas, 1936, oil on canvas, 60" x 60", Fine Arts Museum of
San Francisco)


Black chained hands rise. They have
become the shears of history and cut
through evil. Tilting, layered stars
share a central point that rests
on the right shoulder of a reading,
seeing Black woman. Read and see.

Two Black men stand on an indestructible
foundation. It goes by many names.
Read and see. The men's broad
shoulders defy the past and square
up with the future. Their jaw-lines
assert. One man points through
a spectral sun at pale green towers
and 36 lit windows on a mountain.

The lightning bolt is permanent in purple
skies. It portends the death of White
Supremacy, the Master Depravity.
The men carry necessary tools,
the most necessary of which
are spirit, body, mind. Read
and see. Aspiration is a prophecy.


hans ostrom 2017

Clark Terry's Ballads

(recording: Clark After Dark)

Come inside, where it's mellow dusk
and bourbon brown. I can turn it into noon
at any time, then back to blurry twilight. All
right, come outside--look: red, yellow, and blue
blossoms still want your attention.  Listen

to vespering birds, hear wordless
words of traffic, of trees in rustle
and streets in hustle. Back inside
we'll take note of desire, climb a set
of stairs, so easily. We might be

caught unawares by something sweet
smiling there in mischievous shadows.
It could be us in mirror. It could be
a woman or a man or a ghost. Or just
the house itself, itself, listening.


hans ostrom 2020

Saxophone Sunset

(Ben Webster, "That's All")


Plump notes, tenor sax. Ripe
peaches, warm fuzz exteriorily
wry. Now

things must move uptown.
Phrases must front style.

Though even among neon
and hard traffic & hard lives
they do not lose
their memory of sunset.

Sweet, tart, sad, not bitter,
that's all.



hans ostrom 2018

Read and See

("Aspiration," painted by Aaron Douglas, 1936, oil on canvas, 60" x 60", Fine Arts Museum of
San Francisco)


Black chained hands rise. They have
become the shears of history and cut
through evil. Tilting, layered stars
share a central point that rests
on the right shoulder of a reading,
seeing Black woman. Read and see.

Two Black men stand on an indestructible
foundation. It goes by many names.
Read and see. The men's broad
shoulders defy the past and square
up with the future. Their jaw-lines
assert. One man points through
a spectral sun at pale green towers
and 36 lit windows on a mountain.

The lightning bolt is permanent in purple
skies. It portends the death of White
Supremacy, the Master Depravity.
The men carry necessary tools,
the most necessary of which
are spirit, body, mind. Read
and see. Aspiration is a prophecy.


hans ostrom 2017

Leonardo Showed Her Smile

Please consider starting
with this premise:
Ms. Mona Lisa's smile
is not mysterious.

Now you may release
the heap of stifling baggage,
and if you like,
enjoy the image as it is.


(after reading Leonardo Da Vinci, by Sherwin Nuland [2005].


hans ostrom 2017

Poem for Strings and Saxophone

Yes, saw those attached stretched tendons. Make 'em yowl,
make 'em bleat, make them sweet. For you know
the playing is work: how many muscles in the hands,
wrists, back, and neck? How much instant discernment
in memory, eyesight, and ear-hearing? Now

your neurotransmitters need a break, so let
a saxophone stride in wearing a gold suit,
black shirt, and Falun red tie. Yes, please,
let the horn raise the subject of a steak-thick
fold of cash caught in a worn money-clip.

Bring them together now, brass
and class, robust and refined, all
intertwined.  The music ought
to be serious, funny, subtle, and crude
like something from that Satie dude.



hans ostrom 2016

"Chihuly Glass," by Hans Ostrom

Stuck to a steel frame, pieces
of former fluid seem to float
like tadpoles
like kelp globes
like lily pads
like figures in foam atop a German beer.

Lick them; they are lollipops.
Mock them; they are bugs.
Cheer them; they are art.
Laugh: they are funny shapes.

Orange yellow blue curls
and tails and blotches and blobs
brought out from fire,
confused dough, vibrant mud.

Dear Light: the glass-artist
likes to invite you in
for a cup of mad tea
because hey you came
all the way from the sun.



hans ostrom 2014
Dale Chihuly

“On Dürer’s Melancolia," by William Watson

"Leonardo's 'Mona Lisa,'" by Ernest Dowden

From Inside a Renoir Painting

I am speaking to you from one
of Renoir's paintings. My voice
shatters softly like light.
I'm perspiring terribly
beneath these tight clothes,
these goddamned buttons and bows.

I'm drunk in that annoying way--
you know: wine gone sour
in the belly, head heavy, ambition
for a sexy evening vanished.
Only a nap says to me, "Hey."
I'm glad you like the painting.



hans ostrom, 2013

"Tour of a Painting"