"The Rain," by Robert Creeley

The Six-Drawer Bureau

In a room of this rented,

creaky, tired house, a thick
brown six-drawer bureau
stoutly stares at me. Although
made mostly of empty space
(modern physics claims), it

convinces me of its reality.
One drawer contains my socks
and T-shirts: thus have I put
my faith in illusion. Reality

takes me seriously: a bus
will crush if I get in its way.
The weather's cold today.

I retreated to this room to rest,
to read, to think, to scribble.
I think I'm probably a real
illusion to myself. I think I'll nap.

hans ostrom 2025

Parsonage

 Is the Self

an apparition

barely in view,

then gone, like a last

bit of mist leaving trees,

pushed by a breeze?

Is it a certainty

like a boulder that shapes

the flow of a small

creek singing, bells

in the distance ringing?

Does it simply 

seem to be,

out of necessity?

Perhaps the self's

a symbolic personage,

like a mossy-bricked

parsonage in an old village:

It stands, orienting

the town around itself,

a landmark, but not the core

of the town, nor the whole

village, no certainly

not the whole.

Hans Ostrom 2024

Nose to the Glass

Oh, the stories you tell yourself

about yourself. Constantly.
Certain scenes keep coming around
like mail delivery. You recall bad
behavior. It begs at once for
regrets and excuses, which,
combined like soda and vinegar,
merely fizz. You invent arcs

in your life, heroic ups and downs.
You list alleged achievements.
You indict, forgive, forget, fudge,
and, exhausted, give in to fatalism.

You keep this silly sense of Self
afloat like a raft on a slow river.
No, it's more like Self's just a
habit, like a mannequin in a
window you walk by compulsively
or stare at, nose to the glass.

hans ostrom

Pretender's Odyssey

Seems like every time I tried

to pretend to be someone else,

I was just pretending to pretend.
And I wearied of the effort

fast. I then returned
to pretending to be

me. Which has been very
demanding because the task

is so ill defined & yet I'm
still dedicated to it. I act

like me & then look over
to see how I'm doing &

a me is glancing over his
shoulder, smirking, as he runs.

Pretender's Odyssey

Seems like every time I tried

to pretend to be someone else,

I was just pretending to act

like someone else & I got

tired of it fast. I then returned

to pretending to be

me. Which has been very

demanding because the task

is so ill defined & yet I'm

still dedicated to it. I act

like me & then look over

to see how I'm doing &

a me is glancing over his

shoulder, smirking,  as he runs. 

Velton Stopped Cheering

(revised)

Velton stopped cheering

at football games

and football

matches when he realized

that no one heard him

above the noise

and so a stadium of silence

rose in his mind

a space that applauded

his separateness, his

sense of Velton himself

sitting, standing, in a crowd,

but not of the crowd,

no not of the crowd. 

hans ostrom 2021

In the Moment

There is a way to climb into
a moment and stay as long as you like.
Once inside, you may touch
the moment's lining, which
could be glass, fur, mud, air,
tungsten--anything, really.

Other people can join you
in there although that's rare.
The moment can stretch
and expand to accommodate.

The moment's relationship
with time is oblique, as is your
relationship with yourself,
especially when you are
in the moment.


hans ostrom 2020

Self Government

A federation of doubts governs
my days. Fear, the old dictator,
has risen again. It's enough
that you're breathing, proclaims
this moment's fretting mayor.
The mind continues as a manic,
busy legislature.


hans ostrom 2019

Viduality

Sometimes I'm an individual,
other times a dividual. More and more,
I'm a digividual harried
by image after image after
image. When I hold two contrasting

views at once, at once I become
a stereovidual, who listens gladly
to the paradoxical jazz of uncertainty,
ambiguous riffs unspooling, unresolved.

This viduality of mine's
less simple than certain very
certain individuals would
have me believe. They would
have me believe in my
singularity. Not so fast, say we.


hans ostrom 2019

Important Reminder

It is important to remember
that at any given moment,
no one in the world (or any
world) is thinking about you.
And that is just fine.


hans ostrom 2019

Briefly

Many molecules
briefly in circulation
so as to articulate
a body-plan, which is
embedded in the material
itself (which is like wood
turning itself into
a house): that's me,
temporarily.


hans ostrom 2019

Centri-Fugue

Mind's centrifuge spins in self-defense.
Attempts to spare the core from engulfment
by noise   shocks   sales   extortions  hate;
and drowning by social media. Centrifuge

plays a centrifugue, its own idio-
synchronized music, which insulates,
and which also helps mind evade ego,
culture's target.  A not-you seems

to glide in the fugue. Glowing
multi-colored rain falls. "Starwater,"
it's called by locals, although
there is no locality.  The fogged

not-you folds itself into an unbounded
flow of other disengaged personas.
Soon sadly your non-self hears a noise,
recognizes it as name, and everything's

recalled, ego re-established.  The
spinning and its spun music cease.
Your tense sense of the world resumes.
Out of digital Hades comes the flood again.



hans ostrom 2017

"Mistakes"