When a Night Takes

When a night takes years
to pass and fever builds
a monstrous city in your brain,
you get some funny notions
about time. You writhe

in space like a wounded snake
and sweat like a stoker. God
can't hear you over the wreckage
of sounds in your head.

The pain belongs to someone who
reminds you of you, who
considers becoming terrified,
but that takes energy. And
from tomorrow's direction
comes the strangest thing,
which is you don't know what.



hans ostrom 2019

Haiku Flu

too sad, haiku, you
have the flu & your
fevered syllables shiver



hans ostrom 2018

Fever

The old woman who slid the pan
of cookies into my brain's oven
never came back. The cookies
turned into black dots that float
across my vision. I reek of burnt
dough. I lie on my side like a

buffalo who's reading Hegel
on a parched Kansas plain.
Invisible merchants empty
microscopic vats of hot slime
on my neck, my forehead.
A thin woman with cold fingers
practices scales on my spine.

A chorus of angelic rats
prevents me from nodding off.
I raise one hand as if
to conduct their performance,
and I pass out.



hans ostrom 2013

In Dark Vegetation

In dark vegetation I couldn’t see

my body or hear thoughts.  Fevers

rotted memory.  Maggots flourished,

established a parliament.

I hung in delirium, a sack

of neural bits and pieces.  Birds in

endless green hooted and screamed.

I was transported to a desert that

cooked off confusion, revealing

basic elements of who apparently

I’d been.  My body became obvious

once more, eating dry food and

drinking wet water. I worked

in the factory of noon—my job to attach

objects to their shadows.  Memories

returned, walking like scattered

soldiers returning across sand,

descending from red rim-rock,

shedding uniforms, looking for

lovers and work. 

Hans Ostrom, 2012