"Cooler Days," by Hans Ostrom (Lyrics) and Llewellyn Blue (Vocals)

Brother Season, Sister Season

Autumn, nicknamed Fall

(and what a come-down),

will ride back into town

soon. Under a half-moon's

green-light cloack.

She'll sew dew

and cut last flowers,

stuff them in her saddle

bags to rot. The smell

of her horse will set

the dogs to barking.

She'll stuff berries

into the bloated bellies

of fattening bears. 

Again, she'll lose her temper,

yell, "To Hell with leaves,

I never liked them." 

Finally, her mature brother,

Winter, will stomp in wearing

white boots and an ice-cape.

"Get gone, Sister," he'll say,

direct and cold. "Come back

after next Summer. Drop a note

from South America. 

hans ostrom 2025

Northern Hemispheric November

Oh, November--

my bête noire,
cabinet of cold rain,
sinister capitan of snow,
avant garde of Winter,
tree-stripper, soil-sealer,
gloom-injector, glum puritan.

Oh, November, neither
enemy nor friend, just a
doom-inducer, a sour neighbor,
a moldy blanket, a day-cutter,
a sun-shrouder: you
are a head-cold kind of month.

hans ostrom 2024

Late Bloomer

The symmetrical mound

of purple chrysanthemums has bloomed.
Such a restrained flower--
signaling Fall like a lovely
but modest actuarial checking
her calendar. And the bees,

the bees, greedy for nectar,
hover--then attach themselves
to purple and got to work,
with their whole bodies,
to extract, as if they sensed
an urgency in the air.

hans ostrom 2023

Spring in November

November day, Pacific Northwest--
and Spring came back. It sobbed
thunderstorms, slammed sunlight
into steel clouds, lobbed lightning,
and lit up the sky at dusk like Magritte.

From dark roadways and dim ground,
we may have smiled. Hard to tell
in the Age of the Grimace. Anyway,
Spring knocked a lamp over as it stumbled
back into seasonal order. Across
a muddy field, December
stared like a weary wolf.


hans ostrom 2018

"Fall Sticks in the Craw," by Hans Ostrom

Fall sticks in the craw like the n
in autumn.
It's the season of anxiety attacks,
layoffs,
ritual remarks about leaves and
crisp air, unholy holidays:

Halloween's become an anomalous
appendage,
Thanksgiving a clot of travel and a
ghastly food-orgy.

The cafes start serving
goddamned pumpkin-milkshakes
they still
call "coffee-drinks."

I shouldn't be so negative.
Or I should be
more negative: indecision in
post-equinox days.

True, it's a good time
to get food
to people who have little,
so that's an opportunity.