"Ghosts," by Elizabeth Jennings

"Phantom Blues"

A couple years ago I posted a short poem called "Phantom Blues," and I made a recording/video of it. So there's that.  Apologies to Taj Mahal, who has an album called Phantom Blues. And apparently there's a Phantom Blues Band.

a link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT9EzML0zhY

This Facility

Unintended consequences follow
and then lead. Inconsequential
tendons don't exist, although the
import of those meat-strings comes
clear often only after snap or pull.
I'm not proud of the way my mind

works. It stumbles around
like an optimist in a dark cemetery,
where names on stones change
themselves but change back
before anyone notices. Also

graveyards seem the least
likely place to see or hear
a ghost because if you have
freedom of movement, why
wouldn't you get out of there,
haunt elsewhere, and see
the sights? In conclusion,

the staff is threatening
to take away my privileges,
as if my haunted mind were
powerful; and as if I weren't
the owner-operator of
this facility.


hans ostrom 2016

"Haunted Houses," by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Time to Move

When Daddy started growing antlers
out of his temples,
we decided it was time
to move away from Chemical County.

After they were arrested
and held without bail or a
hearing in a converted warehouse,
one of them had the idea
of reciting Eisenhower's
speech about the military-
industrial complex. They did.
They recited it. And then
they were moved to another
facility. Facility.

After she attempted to burn
all my clothes and kept
leaving cat-carcasses
on my doorstep, I decided
it might be time
to make the move of
re-thinking our relationship.

She shouted as loud as she
could at the people, and they
obviously did not hear her,
so it was then that she knew
she had moved into
a ghost's existence. Which
was fine with her.



hans ostrom 2013

Sex in a Graveyard

We were all sinew and youth,
impulse, tendon, and sex.
When we fucked in the graveyard,
we probably didn’t think
of ourselves as fucking…
We didn’t think of desecration.
Or of ghosts. We lay on cool
concrete that topped a tomb.
We heard creatures stir: I
suspected a doe in the sweet-pea
vines that covered the wire fences.
Moonlight made it through
the canopy of old oak branches
and shone on your body as it
arced above mine: rib-cage,
nipples, breasts, neck, hair,
face, abdomen.. . . Afterwards,
you clutched me close, on top of
me who lay on top of corpses.
Young, anyone might fuck
in a graveyard. Later, they’ll
think of the holding-close, the clutching,
the chill on flesh, everything that happens
before, and after.


Hans Ostrom 2013

Ghosts Are Comfortable

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Ghosts Are Comfortable


When ghosts want to take a break
from ghosting, they sometimes visit
my place. They know I won't
expect anything from them--

not fright, news, melodramatic
Hamlet-crap, or broken dishes.

To be a ghost is to be
a permanent yearning.
It takes a lot of energy.
I've always understood
that about ghosts--
how hard they work.


Copyright 2012 Hans Ostrom