"The Listeners," by Walter de la Mare, set to music, vocals by Simon and...

Phantom Blues

I have the phantom blues.
I'm too tired to be blue.
This is what phantoms do.
They only almost have the blues.

Maybe I'll get some rest
so I can get  depressed.
Yes, that's it. I need to
feel better to feel worse.

Maybe I am a phantom.
I hadn't thought of that.
Just an old weary ghost
with an invisible hat.



Hans Ostrom 2017

Ghosthood

I'll tell you what it's like to be a ghost:
No one sees you.  If you talk, people
don't hear. They will not see you wave.
The apparitional circumstance
is worse than loneliness. It is

to experience nothing.  It is to be
the consciousness of No. Being a ghost
is like wandering an Earth covered
with desert.  It is the desolation
of an infinite bleached sky.


hans ostrom 2017

Ghost Pavilion

I have been admitted to
the Ghost Pavilion,
which rises from a
plateau beyond fatalism.

There one is invited
to view reproductions
of the groups and squads
and masses of faces

one has passed by,
through, or among
in life. Students at
the Ghost Pavilion

accept that reality
exists but also learn
that anybody's perceptions
of it are little more than

a cache of roughly
recorded glimpses.



hans ostrom 2017

"At the Mid Hour of Night," by Thomas Moore

"The Ghost of Henry James," by Hans Ostrom

"Haunted Houses," by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Paranormal Boredom

The ghost

fell asleep on

the couch

watching a

"reality" TV-show

about paranormal

activity.



hans ostrom 2014