Knuckles

Splendid that the word

in English should begin with K,
hard like bone. Make a fist.

There they are, those knobs
in a slanting line, fingers
bolted to them. Make a list

of all the species they knew
before they went to work
for us. People put rings

on fingers, shape and paint
nails, read palms, shake
hands, caress with soft

finger-pads. They might
even tattoo something
sinister near the knuckles,

which no matter what keep
working shifts in the grip
factory, uncelebrated, scraped.

Rub the knuckles of one
hand with the other hand's
fingers: a gesture of thanks.

hans ostrom 2023

Buttons

Click on the Submit button.

*

Button up.
Leave the top button unbuttoned.
Never button the bottom button.

*

He has his finger on the button.
The red button.

*
She hit the return right on the button.

*

If you could just, if you could just
unbutton it a little bit and oh
a little bit more.

*

Yes, right there. That's
it right there. Oh. Oh yes.

*

I never thought I'd miss
the metal buttons on Levi
jeans. I don't. Except now
that I made myself think
of them, I do. I see myself
buttoning up. The first
button down there, not easy.
And if a woman were
to unbutton those jeans
buttons, well . . . .

*

Under the trees, yes,
the button mushrooms arose
like blobs of ghostly paint.

*

Many dolls and sociopaths
have buttons for eyes.

*

For some reason, as she waited
for the bus, she thought
of all the lost buttons
in the world, sinking
into soil or stuck
in cracks of pavement,
wood, and concrete.

*

The extra buttons
sewn on a garment wait
like tiny moons in reserve
for a sky that might need them.

*

When I am invited
to unbutton a woman's blouse
or dress, I feel like a primate,
and I wait for the inevitable
giggle. Eventually, we get there.

A Thing Nearby

old narrow bookcase,

hand-sawed: pinewood

varnished dark, the grain

flowing like a creek at dusk.

traces of the maker's hand

remain--his keyhole saw

and chisel, sandpaper. 

it's good to see the life

in things falsely called

inanimate--spirits of tools,

trees, crafters, days:

evaporated moments way

before I lived. this bookcase

was when I was not. turn now,

see and touch a thing nearby,

retrieve its history alive in your

mind. imagine its granular past

marked by the form of the thing. 

hans ostrom 2021

Fingernail Clippers

 [new version]

A sea creature of lore owned

a gigantic, snub-nosed head

from which a body tapered

shyly. Digital blacksmiths hammer

out our steel replicas.

Lever and fulcrum and

paired toothless blades:

the spare architecture

of a specialized tool.

Owing to his mania,

the reclusive billionaire

eschewed clippers and let

his fingernails accrue

like stalactites. They clicked

like scurrying roaches

when he played cards.

Crows and monkeys groom

each other, picking bugs

from feathers and fur. A calm

comes over them as they pick

and peck. Thinking of them,

I clip a thumbnail--hiding,

like them, from hunger and

fear for a moment, attending

quietly to a bodily chore,

pressing a lever like Archimedes,

watching slivers of keratin

fall away like dreams.

thing poem © right now    fingernail • clipper

The Pink Pistil

a resting cat

opens its mouth

wide so I

can see its

narrow wet tongue

lengthen then curl

like the pink

pistil of a

tropical flower and

I hear hordes

of birds singing

chirping laughing safely

in the canopy.

hans ostrom 2020

Fingernail Clippers

I don't know what they're called
in Italian or Russian or Turkish
but I intend to find out.

They are a singular plural
in English.

A sea creature of lore had a
gigantic, snub-nosed head
and a tapering body. Our
digital blacksmiths hammer
out replicas.

Lever and fulcrum and
paired toothless blades:
the spare architecture
of a specialized tool.

Owing to his mania,
the reclusive billionaire
eschewed clippers and let
his fingernails accrue
like stalactites. They clicked
like scurrying roaches.

Crows and monkeys groom
each other, picking bugs
from feathers and fur. A calm
comes over them as they pick
and peck. Thinking of them,
I clip a thumbnail--hiding,
like them, from hunger and
fear for a moment, attending
silently to a bodily chore.


hans ostrom 2020

Oyster Shells

(near Hoodsport, Washington)

Otters, people, and seabirds covet
the plump valved purse
inside the casing, so every tide
leaves a pale gray rubble

of pillaged oyster shells,
which look like shards
of cloud that fell and
hardened.  Exterior:

rough sculpted, abstract,
ruffled at the edges
like concrete lace.
Some shells still embrace

a stone, creating a tactile
drama of inanimate passion.
It might remind us
that nature's an agony.

Oyster shells seem to ask
to be rescued and given value
in an economy. We pick some
up and carry them around a

while. They're fascinating
and worthless.


hans ostrom 2017

Blood Under a Thumbnail

It's the dark lake under the ice.
It's the reminder-in-residence
of pain and of an accident
that called you "Fool!"
It's the risible badge
of an apprentice carpenter,
and the mark of death
on a doomed slate
of the keratin matrix.
It's a fact that laughs at philosophy.


hans ostrom 2016

Concerning Doors

They're like Calvinist ministers. Merciless oak.
Posture rod-rigid. They're
like politicians; they force us to shake their hands.
They are like dancers: if they cannot swing
and sway, well hey, they would rather
fade into the wall.

They are like laws that sometimes come
between us, sometimes save us from our rage.

When a logger revs the chainsaw and draws
it across a Douglas fir, listen:
from all up and down two hundred feet
of poised timber comes the sound
of doors slamming in suburbia.

Driving the highway, you see them:
uniform, sad doors of motels,
all shut, all locked, all painted
yellow, one yellow bulb above each door.

Note that in the offices of power,
the closed doors are more powerful,
and are larger, than most walls.

In quick old comic films,
villains chased Our Silent Hero
down and across a corridor of doors.
One of the early schticks.

Swinging doors of the set of a
Western looked like a gambler's vest.
Comes the actor playing the slinger
bursting through, his spurs singing
in the sudden scripted silence
like crickets on a prairie. CUT TO:
outside: out through those weak
doors staggers a shot body, stiff
as a real door, then down the steps
and falling into dust. An
American narrative.

The last room alas is only as wide as
its door. You won't hear the pebbles knocking.



hans ostrom 2015

Toes

Yes, I agree: toes
are risibly absurd.

They are pudgy, failed claws.
We encase them like jewelry,
divas, or prisoners, and let them out
for fresh air occasionally.

Their curling's an atavistic
practice that migrated
from branched communities.

When people say, "Kick up
your heels," they seem
to mean nothing.

Heel/toes, heel toes:
onward the masses walk hard
on hard urban surfaces.
It's the economy, stupid.

Our dogs is tired.
Our gods are remote.
This is the greatest age
of toenail polish.


hans ostrom 2015

Poetry-Prompt: Writing a "Thing-Poem"

Buttons

Click on the Submit button.
Button up.
Leave the top button unbuttoned.
Never button the bottom button.
He has his finger on the button.
If you could just, if you could just
unbutton it a little bit and oh
a little bit more.
Under the trees, yes,
the button mushrooms arose
like blobs of ghostly paint.
Some dolls and sociopaths
have buttons for eyes.
For some reason, as she waited
for the bus, she thought
of all the lost buttons
in the world, sinking
into soil or stuck
in cracks of pavement,
wood, and concrete.
The extra buttons
on a garment wait
like tiny moons in reserve
for a sky that might need them.



hans ostrom 2014

Yes We Know a Banana: A Thing Poem

A thing poem is a poem about--you guessed it--a thing. --An object, an item.



In News of the Universe: Poems of The Two-Fold Consciousness, poet, Men's Movement leader, and Jungian Robert Bly argues that the thing poem is new to the West (as in Western civilization); actually he argues that old German riddle-poems (about things) were in the right ballpark but that the West abandoned such poems. It's pretty easy to come up with thing poems written after the riddle poems in the West, however. Swift's poem about a rain-shower in London is really about a sewer-system. Keats wrote about an urn, Wordsworth about a locomoitve, Dickinson about all sorts of things. Bly's interested in a particular kind of thing poem, however, one in which the poet doesn't merely describes but free-associates. Bly might argue that poets should let their unconscious or submerged-conscious mind go to work on the object, just as our dreaming minds go to work on objects, associating freely and surrealistically. Elsewhere Bly has argued that mainstream English and American poetry hasn't done enough of this "leaping," this association. There's too much flat-footed, linear description in the tradition, from his point of view, if I'm representing his view correctly. He's passionate and insistent about his Jungian approach. Me--I'm no Jungian; or if I am, I am one by accident; or I am one and I don't know it--maybe that's the point of Jungianism. But I do like to read and write thing poems, and when a poet gets stuck, turning to the writing of a thing poem is usually a good way out. It's a way to get back to basics. Look at something, write about it, let your mind play carom-shots off it.



Here is a thing poem about a banana. I have given it the second most predictable title I could think of, not "Banana" but "Of Banana." I rather like that old-fashioned use of "of," to mean "concerning."



Of Banana


An armada of curved yellow boats
sails from tropics to a blue northern bay.
On surrounding hills, something
has happened to snow, which is
warm but not melting, is firm
and edible. Modestly we chew the snow.

In the cobbler’s workshop, scraps
of gold leather darken with age.

Tiny faces appear in fog, recede.
Air tastes of smoke and vanilla.

I shall ask that to your door be delivered
a bouquet of enormous commas
with which to punctuate sections
of lush rhetoric you bought at auction.
It is not the least I can do.

Harvesters are chopping, hacking
at sun’s abundant fruit.
Eros arrives in a Panama hat, promoting
a golden fertility symbol. From dense trees,
bright birds deride phallocentrism,
and why wouldn’t they?

Here, dear, are a few soft, white coins
with which to purchase sated hunger
before you walk back in the world,
before you must decide
how many of what to buy.

Here, dear, is charcoal. Please
use it to draw lines on thick, soft yellow paper.
Now peel back the paper to reveal the essence
of what you thought you were drawing. Are
you hungry?

Copyright 2007 Hans Ostrom