For One Night Only

I dreamed books,

the pulp and paper kind,

floated overhead like circling

birds. They

opened and words

tumbled out, came down

like dandelion seeds.

I grabbed what words

I could and put them

in a pail. At home

I dumped them

onto a table,

arranged them

into lists and phrases,

sentences, paragraphs . . . .

I cooked and ate, washed up,

spoke prayers into empty

silence, got in bead, read a book,

and fell asleep knowing I'd never

have the book-dream again. 

Hans Ostrom 2024

The Woman in the Pasture

Roaming one of your thought

neighborhoods, you hear a coin

hit a hard floor, listen as it

oscillates its way into settling flat.

You drift into a vast hall

where a shaft of sunlight

pings off the silvery coin:

you go over, lean, and look.

Symbols on it perplex.

Now a horse snorts, 

and the hall becomes a pasture

& the coin becomes

a pendant nestled

in the cleavage of a woman's

brown breasts. "So that belongs

to you, then?" you ask. "No,

but you do," says she.

hans ostrom 2024

Procession of Cats

Like a long silver ribbon,

the path from the moon

stretches to Earth tonight. And

down the path come the cats,

striding with their lazy lope.

Thousands of them, leaving

their lunar lair, returning

to this ground with moonlight

in their round unblinking eyes.

Arriving, they take their feline

time to scatter to homes,

hideouts, forests, plains,

jungles, mountains, and alleys.

Party Behaviors

 At the party, a light turned on

inside one woman and it shone

through her skin and shirt.

A man brought a private 

darkness with him. He climbed

inside it but still we heard his voice.

One person bent the air,

warping what we saw

making things seem to wiggle,

making us giggle. And some of

a verbose fellow's words became

visible and rose to the ceiling,

full of gas, helium, perhaps.

Only briefly did I become a 

turtle so as to be left alone. 

Hans Ostrom

Alpine Lake

Sometimes the lake takes sunlight,

turns it into a deep blue

that might make you leave your mouth

open slightly like a child

just awake from a nap.

On some leaden summer days,

the lake quits moving, stays

so still it turns frog green.

Sluggish fish nap. Anglers

take their tackle-boxes home.

Giant bugs come and dance

on the water. At night?

At night the lake puts its colors

in an old drawer. It hums tunes

and talks to raccoons and owls

and hiding water fowls.

In Winter the lake turns white

with ice and snow--becomes

stationery from 1925 on which

you scribble pleas to Spring. 

Hans Ostrom 2024

Andre Breton - Definition of Surrealism

Neuron Rogues

Images from anywhere--

dark wet street meets
moon-faced flea-market
vendor meets mandolin
and fire: this is dream--

freed from time because
a sleeping brain is off the clock,
its rogue crew of neurons
free to cook a dewy stew and eat it
behind a turquoise waterfall
or in a plaid nylon shack.

Dreaming's a freedom
one's will can't boss--
a cinema playing beside itself.

For Those Who Sleep With Pain

I have to sleep with pain tonight.

It seems to love me so.
I'd like to break things off.

Between my not-quite sleeping
and not-exactly waking,
I'll stumble down an alley
in my mind to get way
from pain. I'll ask a diner line-cook
"Where's the moon tonight?"
She'll crush her smoke out
then say, "Where it's always been,
my friend, trying to get the the Earth's
attention.

                At alley's end,
I'll walk out to a loud and crashing
avenue, a city's slamming noise.

The Lady from the  Fog will walk
up--say, "Time for you to go to bed?"
And there I'll be, pain kissing me,
and hugging me, throbbing, throbbing.
I'll take some meds, which don't do much.
I have to sleep with pain tonight.
I know I'm not alone. Around the world,
millions, millions, have to sleep with pain.
We have to sleep with pain. 

Dr. Fog

Doctor Fog, what might you

prescribe in your inscrutable scrawl
for this gray pall
through which we crawl?

You will say it's all
in our heads. We'll say
But isn't everything?
You'll take the trouble

to scribble, then send us
away. One night, one day,
we'll hear an awful bawl
from a beast atop a wall

and finally we shall fall
down upon the hide of the city
and we shall know enough
not to expect much pity.

Dr. Fog, you know all this,
now don't you? For you have
slithered daily through moist pall--
physician, ah, magician to us all.

hans ostrom 2022

For 8

Between the celebrities 7 and 9,

you work quietly like the people who
keep societies going: parents, farmers,
masons, plumbers, janitors, maids,
nurses, teachers,....

Infinity, standing up. Something,
born of two nothings.

In a dream, I walked into a mild
desert and found an octagon, entered.
There were musicians playing,
and dancing, and warm laughter
at the edges, and eight blue
mountains in the distance.

hans ostrom 2022

"Ode to Hope," by Pablo Neruda

 Reading and video for Youtube of Neruda's poem:

"Ode to Hope"

Sonnet XXVII: "Naked, you are simple as one of your hands," by Pablo Neruda

 Reading of the shorter poem plus a video, text from allpoetry.com:

"Naked, you are simple as . . ."

One by Neruda

 "Leaning Into the Afternoon," by Pablo Neruda, master of the surrealist love poem--reading and video, short poem:

"Leaning into the Afternoon"

Hiram Reports from His Adventure

 In dark vegetation I couldn’t see

my body or hear thoughts.  Fevers

rotted memory.  Maggots flourished

and founded a parliament.

I hung in delirium, a sack

of neural bits and pieces.  Birds in

endless green hooted, screamed.

I was transported to a desert that

cooked off confusion, revealing 

basic elements of who allegedly

I’d been.  My body became obvious

once more, eating dry food and

drinking wet water. I worked

in a factory of noon—my job to attach

objects to their shadows.  Memories

arrived, stumbling like scattered

soldiers returning across sand,

descending from red rim-rock,

shedding uniforms, looking for

lovers and work. 

"Gratitude to Old Teachers," by Robert Bly

A poem in blank verse--not typical of Bly. But it has his characteristic surrealism, offering a striking comparison, to say the least, all in the context of walking across a frozen lake, no doubt in Minnesota. Bly's book about surrealistic poetry, Leaping Poetry, is terrific. 

link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PngPw5xK3Fs

"Under Cover of Night," by Robert Desnos

Short poem from the French surrealist who knew Breton, Aragon, and Eluard. Desnos also worked in radio, and he knew Hemingway and Dos Passos. He joined the French Resistance and eventually was capture by the Nazis and sent to concentration camps. He died in one, having suffered from typhoid.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZY14Et6Gn4

"We Two," by Paul Éluard

Reading/video of 44 seconds of a poem by the French surrealist Paul Éluard, who was associated with Max Ernst, Andre Breton, Pablo Picasso, and Louis Aragon. 

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xN2RgX6FIA

Bass and Bass

4:32 a.m., can't sleep,
can't stop thinking about
bass and bass. Bass guitar,
bass fishing. I assemble
do-it-yourself-dreams--
a lake where stringed
instruments swim, leap
for bugs while cranking
thudding beats. An

orchestra full
of slime-scaled instruments
playing Debassy's Wildlife
Biology Suite--the
audience gowned out
in mosquito nets and
hip waders. I order

my mind to order
itself: Stop this!
It opens its wide mouth
and laughs, teeth full
of black musical notes.


hans ostrom 2020

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

Transformation: Russian Poet

When I become a Russian poet,
I write lines like "I walked home
from the universe after midnight."
In my diary, I record hunger,
infatuation, death, more death,
prayer, gibberish--and passion
that screams in my throat.

I read American poetry
and wonder, "When will
they ever grow up?" I was
born grown up. It's the Russian
way. I write poems
about white birches, inconstant
lovers, and ice--in spite
of myself. Poetry was invented
everywhere but especially,
especially in Russia.


hans ostrom 2019