Talk in Cardiff

 

Big crowded restaurant next

to Mermaid Quay & my wife
steps out to take a call & I
focus on total sound of voices
talking--a liquid aural sculpture
of what bubbles, bursts, and flows
out of minds onto tongues & lips
& teeth. Fricatives and sibilants,
bumped rhythms, syncs and
overlaps, high-lows, quick stops,
clicks, loud cackles, the symphonic
babble of us. These folks

talk about, these eager eaters
paroled from homes, & they talk
to talk, as talkers do and must
& it's just good to listen
to the rich chopped salads of sounds
severed from sense--a dense
space, a tide. My wife returns

& I say, "What was she calling
about?" She says, "Oh, she
just wanted to chat."

Like People, We Converse

 We're conversing like people

who converse. A walking
commentary. Opinions
flourish like weeds.

"The way things should be"
and "the way things used to be"
become the engines
that drive our words. What if we
spoke of things we never speak of?--

And grandma said, "I'd like crows
to turn lake blue one year." To which
grandpa said, "I was never eager
to fall in love because I thought of
it as just another chore."

Instead we keep familiar packages
of words moving down
conversational conveyor belts.
Because we're tired. Because
we're accustomed. Because
we get together only a couple
times a year and just want
to get through the occasions safely.

Word Warehouse

He always listened to people. (And
to birds, for that matter.) Now that seems
to be all he does--listens, without talking.
He's forgetting how to converse. So

is society, but that's different. Or is it?
He feels like a worker at a word warehouse.
He opens the loading bay, and people
deliver their words, which he shelves.

Sometimes the freighters hang around,
expecting him to say something, so
he tries, and they leave. He's relieved.
He knows he shouldn't be. He stands

listening to the warehouse quietly.


hans ostrom 2020

An Under-rated State of Being

Beside a creek, we discussed creeks.
At a table we talked of American
depravities--acidic combinations
of sex-policing, racist hate, and greed.

In a bookstore, we spoke of sex.
In many places, we used language
to evade. Hiding, we sometimes
told the truth. We asked questions

in anger, illness, lust, inebriation,
shock, exhaustion, and fear. We
fiercely expressed certainties
that, seen later, were all wrong.

At our best, we had nothing to say and
said nothing: an under-rated state of being.



hans ostrom 2018

The Talk Artist

She kept talking. I let her talking
be the sound of a creek, an abstraction
made of sound waves.

Then her talking began to sound
like a sea, rising and retreating.
It mesmerized me.

"Does that make any sense?"
she asked. I roused myself
from hearing to answer:

"Yes, and it's beautiful in its
own way," I said, referring
to her talking. That

induced her to talk more.
She was a compulsive talk artist.
She talked as if to breathe.



hans ostrom 2018