The Limits of Anxiety

Anxiety feel like breathless

pressure in the chest,
a fluttering suddely of crazed
birds. Anxiety morphs
into dread, shakes the bars
of its cell for help.

Low charcoal clouds
move in, park just above
the head, which wants
to love hope but can't.

Anxiety's gaze wants
to weld itself to a dark pit,
a kind of sick security.

But it is nothing, anxiety
is nothing compared to what
the tortured imprisoned,
the constantly bombed and
displaced, must feel always,
even as they sleep, if they sleep.

hans ostrom 2024

"Fear," by Ciaran Carson

 Reading/video of a fine poem by Irish poet Ciaran Carson (1948-2019):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRZT01YQwNI

Postcard from Anxiety

Hello! We've arrived.
Our knees have buckled,
and we're sick to our
stomachs. We're terrified
of being afraid. It's
just like home! We're
not sure how long we
will stay. We're never sure,
for certainty always lies.
We gulp our breaths.
Love to all, Us.


hans ostrom 2019

The Matter with Matter

It rolls on. It
rolls over itself as it
rolls through itself.

How could our relationship
to it--matter--be anything
but terrifying?

Terror may be
the original spark
of myth, ideology,

religion: To explain
elaborately so
as to defend ourselves.

Christ, you think
(if you think Christ),
I'm already dead. 


hans ostrom 2018

An Under-rated State of Being

Beside a creek, we discussed creeks.
At a table we talked of American
depravities--acidic combinations
of sex-policing, racist hate, and greed.

In a bookstore, we spoke of sex.
In many places, we used language
to evade. Hiding, we sometimes
told the truth. We asked questions

in anger, illness, lust, inebriation,
shock, exhaustion, and fear. We
fiercely expressed certainties
that, seen later, were all wrong.

At our best, we had nothing to say and
said nothing: an under-rated state of being.



hans ostrom 2018

The Vast Hall

Another group has rented
the vast hall here. We must leave.

We didn't know this day would come.
We knew a day would.

Yes, of course I'm confused
and afraid, as if I'd been hollowed

out and panic had been poured in.
I'm also greedy for more time

in this grand space. That's so small
of me.  A door will open,

and a door will close. The simplicity
of it is appalling.



hans ostrom2017

"The Difference Between Despair and Fear," by Hans Ostrom

"these things," by Charles Bukowski

The Topic of Your Thighs

Your thighs are and are not
like warm, supple glass. They
make me think of seven golden
horses galloping across a field
of black grass; thus, I must

disrupt the senator's speech--
and instantly find myself
stopped, frisked, tazed,
Mirandized, Godoted, Kafkaed,
NSAed, SWATted, and entered

into the system. Why, why
did I stray
from
the topic of your thighs?




hans ostrom 2013

Hiram Goes to Cafe Fear

(another in a series of "Hiram" poems)

Hiram Goes To Café Fear

Hiram thinks, “Here I am sitting inside

my shirt, shoes, and trousers, on a chair

at a table in a café.  I am afraid

of dying.  Also of nothing.  I tell

a waitress what I want for lunch.

She brings it.  I eat it, holding off

fear for a while.  I don’t know

who or why I am.  I am aware

of sitting, afraid, inside my clothes

and body.  This is me, I think. 

So this is me and this my fear.”

Hans Ostrom, 2012

Wary

Wary Lyric

I live in wariness,

which is no place.

It is an atmosphere,

a mental space.

*

Courtesy suggests I

ought to give an image

to sharpen what I mean.

A coyote on a ridge:

*

It watches, listens, sniffs.

Only hunger makes it vicious.

Otherwise, it lives by wariness,

is naturally suspicious

*

and alone, even in company.

Me, too, to some degree.

I live in wariness, a type

of fear. That's me.

Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom