Collecting Thoughts

In their abode, "I'm going

to go collect my thoughts"

became a code 

for "I'm going to take a nap."

The euphemism's like a cat's

toy or anything a feline feels

like batting around, slobbering on,

and then--before a nap--ignoring. 

Well, there those thoughts are,

spread out on a cloth in the mind.

Not very many, not of the highest

quality. Mostly worries, minor obsessions, 

images of flowers or birds--something

pleasant, maybe, to look at 

as one rolls over and feels

grogginess close the eyes

and fog the conscious mind. 

Hans Ostrom 2024

Sleepy

It comes on like a fog

in a sunny sea town.

It hypnotizes like the gold
watch of an old Vienna doctor.

It bargains on behalf of muscles
that work too hard too long.

It soothes you toward darkness,
promising sleep will love you.

When it goes, it leaves the door
open and slumber strides in.

hans ostrom 2023

Cicadas and Spider

A cicadian chorus sings
in my circadian sleep. In a dream
I weep and laugh and weep
a little more. I knock on a door.

Who opens it is a spider playing
four violins. "Why, come in,"
says the spider. "You're just in time."
"For what?" I ask.

"For to be yourself, to tap a drum,
to have some have some have
some fun." That's what's left
us in the the end: a chance
at fun, and then . . . .


hans ostrom 2020

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

Of Morpheus

Last night Morpheus, dream
distributor, sent a severed head
to my sleep. I couldn't decide
what to do with the head. I carried
it around, stored it, hid it, hid from it.
This took several seconds or a year.

People in the dream, extras,
noticed the head and discussed me
when I was absent, and I heard
everything they said, which is how
waking life should work. They
began to think less and less of me,
and I started to hate myself
more and more. I never asked
who the head belonged to. I

took it with me underground,
cool moist rooms of concrete
and steel. Strange chambers.
I could not just finish the dream
and bury the head. Chest full
of panic. Eyelids fluttering
outside the dream like butterflies

The head rotted on my lap.
I sat and rocked myself awake.
Awake, I told Morpheus to fuck off.


hans ostrom 2019

"People Are Terrible, No Exceptions," by Hans Ostrom

There are days when you'd settle
for running into just one person
who is at least less annoying
than you have become to yourself;
--and when even that is apparently
too much to ask.

So you go home loathing everyone.

Grudgingly, you think well enough
of yourself to get through the evening.
You observe your own quirky, tiresome,
reclusive behaviors.

You have no clue who
you really are or what
"really are" even means.
You have no interest
in finding a clue.

With disgust, then, you go to bed.
Sleep gives you desperately needed
respite from thinking of people
and your ego--that Self who's
just like everybody else.



hans ostrom 2014

"Grown-Up," by Edna St. Vincent Millay

"She Tells Her Love While Half Asleep," by Robert Graves

Sleeping Seaside

Sleeping Seaside


The sea can give only so much. It shrugs
tides inland as far as possible. Then its
conscience, the moon, urges caution. What's
left behind on strands looks broken or worn.
Anyway it's exiled from origin and function:
a cracked shell, a driftwood plank.
A receding tide's a kind of regret.

Hearing the sound of surf all night erodes
the will's high bank. That's when a tide
of sleep advances. That's when you wade
in the water, child, and shrug off the day.


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom