Attention, Please

The more people there are
(more all the time)
and the more media there are
(same),
the less attention there is to go
around. Celebrity
diverts rivers of it
like golf courses in a desert.

Whole groups, cities, nations, cultures
crave attention (more than ever),
partly because of the illusion
that they may receive it. An
epidemic of narcissism expands.

We manage ourselves as commodities,
with packaging, labeling, advertising.

It is the other attention-deficit
disorder, the more harmful one.
An insatiable mass-appetite. Add
Americanness to it, and
it becomes exponentially worse.


hans ostrom 2015

Who Else?

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Who Else?

The famous have families, too. Leave
them to their grief, even as operatives,
lawyers, and T-shirt makers go to their
hives to get busy. Who else besides
the famous died today? Our electric
screens can't say. So we imagine
abandoned old and demented ones
dissolving into last breaths and final
hallucinations. Or we think

of soldiers, refugees, and homeless
ones who strayed so far from hope.
Others get shot, blown up, bludgeoned.
Disease and mad accidents steal others'
lives. Though the scandal of death
is always and everywhere, media explode
phosphorescently when celebrities die.
The glare blinds us momentarily. The

exhausted ritual gossip stops our ears
like beeswax. We recover, recognize
the grotesque face beneath the face
of fame, turn away, get on
with tasks. The commonplace seems
dear. The famous have families and
friends. Leave them to their
privacy if they'll have it.

Our talking screens entreat us
to come back and gaze some more. No.
Who else besides the famous died today?
In the wind, green cedars sway.

Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom