Over: A Song

Over the bones,
monuments stand.
Over the stones,
dirt, grit, and sand.

Over the stream,
one heron flies.
Over our heads:
banal gray skies.

Now lightning,
now thunder,
now rain.

Umbrellas
will bloom
in the lane.

Over the years
the town's grown sad.
Over the good
runs all the bad.

Over my soul,
crows and owls fly.
Over my days
looms the great Why.

Now silence,
Now whispers,
Now crying,

As always
we're selling,
we're buying.



hans ostrom 2019

Bar Codes

Draperies, and some of the folds
bunch together. The merchant
has pulled them across the whole
window in order to hide from customers.

Rain came straight down that day.
At the same time, wind plowed
it into mountains like harp strings.
We were desperate for beauty.

Was the wall in that baked town
painted white at first, with black
stripes added later? Or black
first, white lines later?

From my roasting room across
the street, I kept asking such
questions in my stupor,
in my visitor's defeat.


hans ostrom 2018

Found Towns Lost

In daylight tiny
rural towns pretend
not to feel foolish
and depleted. There's
activity. An enthusiastic
conversation or two.
Errands and repairs.

At night streets
(such as they are)
become empty corridors
because people give
up, go inside, and
refuse to be towns-
people, too ridiculous.

Some shops weep,
others moan. If electricity
goes there at all, it
races through power
lines hoping not to be
used there. Before

dawn, animals file
through in a loose
parade.  Raccoons,
stray dogs, feral
cats, owls, and sometimes
a coyote. The stoic church
bell sweats rust, and
all the glory's in ornate
tombstones on a hill.


hans ostrom 2017

"Big Laughter, Small Towns," Hans Ostrom

The very big laughter,
rude/unrefined,
in very small towns
around the world:
it springs, blooms, booms.
Cackling and crackling and thunder.

It needs to make too much of too little,
of nothing sometimes.

Big cities outlaw open laughter,
which is inefficient and free,
not a commodity.

In little out 'the way places,
which are litter left behind,
there's never enough that's funny.
Which is funny.

The very big laughter
in very small towns
might be accompanied
by stomping of boots
on boards, washed clothes
pinned to the wind, and a combo
of broken conveyances.

If you pass through,
laugh, too; not at.


hans ostrom 2014

Names of the Obscure

Names of the Obscure


Mr. Jiggs ran the grocery store in town. He never used
his name as an excuse for not being famous. No one ever
asked, "Hey, Jiggs, did you want to be famous?" It was
out of the question. Not so with Johnny, local mischief-artist:
A thief by age 15, in the Marines by 18, back home at 24
starting fights. He wanted fame and settled for trouble.

Meanwhile, Claude Munkerz became ever more reclusive.
With a name like that, what else was he supposed to do?
Where were "his people" from? someone once asked, not
looking for an answer. Those who made it inside Claude's
shack came back with tales of smells, guns, and incongruously
exquisite furniture. Johnny robbed Clyde (guns and cash),

left town, never came back or found fame. Jiggs let Munkerz
run a tab at the grocery. Claude paid in cash at first, then
in barter (walnut table, mahogany chair), then not at all.
He died. So did Jiggs, in Florida, after retirement. On his
lap when he had the heart attack lay People magazine--
all about famous people.

Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom