"Reading Is Sexy," Lyrics by Hans Ostrom

 funky R&B

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKEyONQxQvY

Bookshelves

In a musty library room

in a friend's old abode,

dark wooden shelves,

floor to ceiling, look like

rows of secrets, willing

to be opened like gates

and doors and windows

and minds. To reach

for one book, clothbound

with no dust jacket, and 

take it from its snug space,

fulfills a desire. For what?

You don't entirely know,

do you? But there it is,

the book, quiet and pliant

in your hands, centuries

of the printing art floating

invisibly behind it. The rest

of the books on all the shelves

and walls look on,

like spectators at a stadium--

but they're the quietest

audience ever. A clock's

bell dings, softly, softly. 

Hans Ostrom 2024

She Liked Inspector Maigret

 Elise Moeller Ostrom, 1927-2023

When her husband my uncle died,
I sent her a note and a mystery novel.
When next I saw her, she said,
"Thanks for your note and for not
sending me a goddamned book on grief."

She has just died, age 95, after decorously
drinking a lot of beer and devouring
crime novels for seven decades.
I never saw her not composed. She
saved that for privacy.

Her opinions firm as tungsten,
she voted liberal and pro-union
but wanted results, not fools
prattling ideology.

Her father was a football coach
and she married one, followed
fanatically the S.F. 49ers. Into old age,

she grew flowers, stacked her own
firewood, shoveled snow, and
fed migrating doves. We liked
each other a lot because, I think,
we liked words. Love? Grief?

Well, sure, but with restraint.

hans ostrom 2023

Books on a Bed

A small pile of books on a bed.
Six paperbacks, one hardback,
all used, handled. Not so different
from beach debris. Here, says the sea,
here are some stories someone
dropped inside me. They're free.


hans ostrom 2020

Take Him In

Madame, take him in.
He's like an old dog.
Give him some water,
scratch behind his ears
(so to speak), and he'll be
loyally enamored,
or is already. You could
probably use the company.

He doesn't talk much,
and he'll listen all night.
After you fall asleep,
he'll read, or daydream
at the wrong hour.

Later, give him some food
or ask him to bring you some.
Give him something
to bark at on your behalf.
Call him whatever
you like when you
invite him to leave.
Names are as common
as fleas, and he didn't
name himself & so has
no investment in the thing.

You don't have to keep him--
around or otherwise. Merely
take him in, madame.



hans ostrom 2018

Solitary Book

She's a solitary book. She
wants a shelf all to herself.

She's well printed inside
and bound with a durable,

beautiful cover. She's full
of ideas, pathos, and humor.

Sometimes she invites me in.
There it is a local heaven.

From her name and table
of contents through to the

colophon, back and forth
I go along innumerable paths,

knowing her story in some
of its endless ways. It's never

long before she sends me away.
She likes a shelf all to herself

and is most comfortable when
closed.



hans ostrom 2018

Fyris River

The Fyris River
is a fine small river--
energetic and direct.

It runs through
Uppsala there
in Sweden, I want
to say, but should
instead say that
energetic
and direct humans
built Uppsala up
around the river,
which they named
Fyris. The stones

and bricks and
water and light and
birds and darkness
all seem familiar
to  each other
there in Sweden,
Uppsala, as if
they have worked
things out pretty
well. I did not

however speak to
any fish. I tried
to do so once
when I paused on
a bridge over
the Fyris on
my way to the bookstore
during Book Month.

The fish were
indisposed--reading,
perhaps, in the Fyris.



2015 hans ostrom

"Judged"

To be seen
was to be judged.
To be heard
was to be judged.
To be silent
was to be judged--

judged for seeming
to withdraw from judging.
Thus silence seemed preferable.

To try to perform any task
was to be judged.
To prefer not to try
was to be judged and
to be forced
to try, then judged.

To conform was to be judged.
Not to conform, the same.

Every so often in this climate
thick with judgment, one
of the judges might throw
some praise your way, grudgingly,
as if it were a bone to a dog.

To read was to be judged but not
effectively, for they knew not what
exactly to judge you for, quite.

Thus reading became a pleasurable,
soft fortress. To write

was to have the written judged.
Worth the risk.

Just to be and to try to fill out
your personhood was to be judged.

They taught you how to judge
yourself: oppression, swallowed
and digested.

The energy they spent on judging
and you spent reacting to and evading
judgment: incalcuable; to be judged
a misappropriation.


hans ostrom 2015

"Message from a Bookmark," by Hans Ostrom