I Demand to Know

A dragonfly, wearing standard-issue
lead goggles, downshifts its wings,
which when still look like foggy
cracked windows. Resting,

this dragonfly pulses. Its curved
blue tail befriended a scorpion
once during a vacation in Mexico.

I demand to know
what this dragonfly thinks.


hans ostrom 2016

I Liked Those Days

[pictured: a potato bug]

Good Ground

I liked those days when I kept my gaze

close to the ground, although I'm sorry

about that sound I repeated in line one.

I saw black beetles, which gave off an

awful stench, and I saw potato-bugs,

large, delicate, decorated, slow--

almost like Art Deco. Yes, I saw

salamanders, those wee amphibians,

amost too gentle for Earth, connoisseurs

of shadow. Sight of scorpions and

black-widow spiders injected me

with terrible lore and jolts of adrenalin.

I saw ants hauling dead moths like

stiff canvas sails, and I watched ant-lions

waiting for prey to slip down the side

of the terrible sandy funnel. I read

Earth closely. It's the best book ever,

after all, especially when you're a kid,

even if you're a kid who likes to read.

I sneaked up on the frog pond and watched

frogs copulate, all of them at once, and

what a cacaphony! Later I saw the

tadpoles, which grew legs--freakier

than any horror movie Hollywood

had to offer the National Broadcasting

Company. I learned to stand tall and notice

humans almost exclusively. This is known

as "joining society" or "growing up" or

whatever term you prefer. It's one of

those necessary things. Life may be

better spent with one's nose close to

soil and stone, eyeballing bugs and

all that stuff. No, I don't mean becoming

a "naturalist." That would ruin everything.

This isn't nostalgia. It's just preference.

Spiders, insects, worms, amphibians,

reptiles, and birds delivered the goods

curiosity sent for from the mail-order

catalogue, is all I'm saying. These

creatures did some weird, interesting

shit, just as a part of their ordinary

day, okay? I'm an adult now, no

major complaints today, but I do

wish for children that they may live

near interesting ground and be

allowed to read it if they want to.

Hans Ostrom Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom

The Scorpion King II

We subscribe to cable television, and so we have access to something like 31,238 channels. However, we tend to be interested in only about 6 of them, two or three that run different iterations and re-runs of Law and Order, a couple of so-called "news channels," and channels that give us access to BBC news, programs, and movies. I also like to watch C-Span, the fundamentalist Christian "network," the Weather Channel, and other anomalies.

On one of these selected channels, I saw an advertisement for the DVD of a movie called Scorpion King II. I haven't seen Scorpion King [I], but I think it may have been produced by the unusual people who are in charge of professional-wrestling-entertainment.

I've seen only a couple scorpions in my life, so I'm no expert, but I don't think scorpions are ruled by a monarchy. The scorpions I met seemed like they would rebel against the very idea of a hereditary monarchy, in fact.

However, I gather the scorpion monarchy has not been in place for a long time, as it is now ruled only by its second King. Some monarchies consolidate power via marriage, so maybe the Scorpion King will marry the Princess of Spiders or Lady Bug, who will then become the Scorpion Queen.

Interestingly, I saw no scorpions in the advertisement for The Scorpion King II. Most of the images seemed to be of young body-builders with lubricated upper bodies. They seem to be running and carrying swords from the studio's collection of swords.

The language such advertisements borrow from alleged reviews of the product being offered is a bit like exhausted poetry. For example, the quotations mentioned in this advertisement included the following: "Non-stop action!" "Bone-crushing excitement!"

I like movies in which the action stops occasionally. I like it when people stop chasing each other or hacking off limbs, sit down, and have a conversation. Also, at some point, the action in all movies needs to stop after an hour or two, don't you think? At some point, the credits have to run. As for bone-crushing excitement, I am ambivalent, at best. I can't envisage liking excitement that would result in the crushing of bones.

I don't think I'm going to rent or purchase the DVD for The Scorpion King II. If there is a so-called "Nature" show--on a Public Broadcasting channel--that focuses on scorpions, I am likely to watch it for a while, however.