"Ice Hockey," by Hans Ostrom

 Reading/video of my small contribution to the literature of ice hockey:

link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPNbp5Yw2uM

Ice Hockey

They are painters on skates,
brushing and dabbing the cold canvas
on which they glide and whirl.

They are sleep-walkers
in colorful pajamas, wandering
on the bright stage of a dream,
everyone else in darkness,
looking on, fascinated.

They are hornets and wasps
in dubious and snarling battle,
released in groups from their
nests, terribly distracted by one
black fly that moves among
them, a dark dot 

playing dead, then jetting off. 

hans ostrom 2017

Harvest Blade

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Harvest Blade

Hockey players in uniform float
down a river enlarged
by a massive ice-melt far away.

They hold their sticks high,
rudders without boats. Look, now:
they're followed by last year's

Queen of the Adrenalin Parade,
dressed in a gown of
acetylene blue-and-white.

She rides on a raft made
of synthetic whale-bones.
Violinists from broken

orchestras line the river-bank,
serenading all things that pass
on floods.  In shallows,

fish hear strings' vibrations, shimmer;
and shiver. And the glare from the sun
is a blade. It is a harvest blade.

Copyright 2011