Life Is A Breath

Very short reading/video of a poem by moi:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AmEtmRs0p0

Happy Breathing

Life Is Just a Breath

Life is just a breath,

A breath in empty space,

Until love takes the breath

Away and to a different place.

hans ostrom 2020

What Happened to What Happened

I know what happened
to what happened. It sits
right here in my hand
like a small bird,
a little bit of sand,
or a few notes that fell
out of a song.


hans ostrom 2019

"Anatomy of a Common Misfit," by Hans Ostrom

Sometimes he observes
neighbors, how they drive cars,
converse with each other, walk,
stand, live; and it seems to him

they're really comfortable
with these tasks of living.

He feels awkward by comparison;
and he compares. He feels
not comfortable.

He wishes he had sought
special training in his 20s,
not on the tasks themselves
(he knows how to do them,
and he does them)
but in the being-comfortable
part. Comfort with what
is alleged to be routine.

Now he can't change,
even if he wanted to.
The most he can do
is pretend to have
adapted properly. And
that's not so bad. He'll
leave genuine easy
living to the neighbors,
whom he waves at
in terribly awkward ways,
for example.

He belongs to a demotic
species--the Common Misfit.


hans ostrom 2014

"Out Fairly Far," by Hans Ostrom

We're fairly far out now, well
past the harbor. We float on darkness,
look back to diminished city lights.
Stars gain candle-power. The sea

makes more sounds than we can
listen to. None of us knows
why we're out here, not really.
All of us fell short of

our dreams for ourselves. The
dramas of our lives are small
but exhaust us still. There is no
captain. We take turns at the helm.


hans ostrom 2014

Thanks: A Poem

Life happened to me,
fortunately. It could
not have happened
to me, quite possibly,
although there would
have been no I to have
missed the opportunity,
no sensor of vacuity.

Occasionally, one asks
why, or what have I done,
or what was I supposed
to do. No clue. I'm
nothing more than just
another you perceived or
not by other I's and yous,
we's and theys. Thanks are
a kind of praise.



hans ostrom, 2013

Precise, Indifferent, Fluctuating

Hiram liked to piss outside in any season.
There's little reward in asking why.
It does have something to do with men.
Inquire of them. Or not.

Hiram, in socks, no shoes,
pissed outside in a rainstorm.
He said to himself,
"This is outstanding. It is right."

As urine flowed through
his cock into sodden grass
lit dimly, he thought, "One
trouble for humans is

that the universe is
absolutely precise (he
was looking at things
that could be only

what, when, and how
they were), in constant
flux, and indifferent to
human preferences. 


Hans Ostrom 2012