World's Worst Spy

I would have been the worst of spies:

undisciplined, distracted--staring at a lovely
woman while I was s'posed to follow
another nation's spook. Forgetting codes
and passwords, and reading poetry
instead of pilfered documents.

I prob'ly would be tempted
to offer an exchange of knowledge
with the enemy, so that each side
would know exactly what the other
knew, and knew about the other.

This would cut down on expenses
And maybe make the world safer: Do
you scoff at this? I scoff. It's not the way
the agnonistic world works.

Too often I ask of ways
the agonistic world works: is
this trouble really called for?
Aren't there simpler ways?
I would have been the worst
of spies. I fear if I had been a spy,
my own side would have had me
shot.

hans ostrom 2025

Opera Operative

An operative at an opera
ogles the audience,
lets singing sluice her
professional suspicion.

The operative serves
no cause, only fulfills
assignments, and laughs
at the news.

The opera is a tragedy
apparently--like civilization,
thinks the operative, who
has seen what's needed

to be seen, so that the mission
may now blossom like an aria.



hans ostrom 2018