Nightmare, My Visitor

At age 4, then lasting for years,
a short nightmare came to live with me.
(Sometimes it struck just as I nodded off.)

Me, in a dark oval space--
like a hollowed out eggplant.
I touched the pliant walls & then

a dark shape like a train engine
ran over me, erased me & I
startled myself awake to stay alive.

It visited less often down the years
& finally retired. Somewhere deep
in the mind's damp stone workshop,

a laborer toils to work through
something kept secret from me.
The translation of that bedeviling

dream lies in a vault down there.
I don't miss the nightmare. But if
it came back, I'd think, "Oh, it's you."

Nightmare, My Visitor

 At age 4, then lasting for years,

a short nightmare came to live with me.
(Sometimes it struck just as I nodded off.)

Me, in a dark oval space--
like a hollowed out eggplant.
I touched the pliant walls & then

a dark shape like a train engine
ran over me, erased me & I
startled myself awake to stay alive.

It visited less often down the years
& finally retired. Somewhere deep
in the mind's damp stone workshop,

a laborer toils to work through
something kept secret from me.
The translation of that bedeviling

dream lies in a vault down there.
I don't miss the nightmare. But if
it came back, I'd think, "Oh, it's you."

When a Night Takes

When a night takes years
to pass and fever builds
a monstrous city in your brain,
you get some funny notions
about time. You writhe

in space like a wounded snake
and sweat like a stoker. God
can't hear you over the wreckage
of sounds in your head.

The pain belongs to someone who
reminds you of you, who
considers becoming terrified,
but that takes energy. And
from tomorrow's direction
comes the strangest thing,
which is you don't know what.



hans ostrom 2019

"Canal Dream," by Hans Ostrom

Oh, lovely nightmare
of the canal and futile,
panicked paddling, I do
love to wake from you
with you. A film

of absurd residue
coats my grogged
consciousness. You
depart like a cool
lover. I get up and

get into a day,
which joins other
days I haven't understood.
Dearest canal-nightmare,

you're so easy
by contrast to these
lived days. I enjoy
working with you.


hans ostrom 2014

Paranormal Poetry

Here is a list of about 20 "paranormal" poems--reading recorded for Youtube--from a wide range of authors--including Edna St. Vincent Millay ("Witch Wife") and Jorge Luis Borges ("Nightmare"):

In Dark Vegetation

In dark vegetation I couldn’t see

my body or hear thoughts.  Fevers

rotted memory.  Maggots flourished,

established a parliament.

I hung in delirium, a sack

of neural bits and pieces.  Birds in

endless green hooted and screamed.

I was transported to a desert that

cooked off confusion, revealing

basic elements of who apparently

I’d been.  My body became obvious

once more, eating dry food and

drinking wet water. I worked

in the factory of noon—my job to attach

objects to their shadows.  Memories

returned, walking like scattered

soldiers returning across sand,

descending from red rim-rock,

shedding uniforms, looking for

lovers and work. 

Hans Ostrom, 2012