Return to Uncleton

Return to Uncleton

His uncle had named the town Uncleton,

served as mayor for fifty years.

Except to tidy up the dog’s grave,

he goes back only for the annual

Rust Festival. He owns snapshots

of the Rust Queens and their Oxidized Courts

from the last twenty years. The lake looks

different from before and smells.

His trousers slip off his buttocks,

and teenagers laugh, their goddamned

music thumping out of cars. He’s inherited

just a pinch of his uncle’s rage

but no property. The sun off the lake

makes him scowl. Where exactly is

the dog’s grave? He remembers how,

just a pup, the little bastard nipped him.

Uncleton, O Uncleton, I hate the way you

draw me back like english on a cue ball.

Copyright 2007/2017

This Is Your Uncle Vinton

)
)
)
)


This Is Your Uncle Vinton


This is your Uncle Vinton calling:
You say you don't have an Uncle
Vinton, and you close the call.

Actually you do have an Uncle
Vinton. He's a secret, me. I was
going to mention a few other things

you may not know. But that's all right.
You'll be fine not knowing them, me.
You may recall in quiet moments

the calm assurance of my voice when
I said, This is your Uncle Vinton calling.
Our disconnection will be our only connection.

--Unless of course you call me some night
and say This is your niece, Verona, calling,
and I say, "I don't have a niece named Verona."


Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom

Name In The Book

Name In The Book

So I called an uncle to tell him
his sister, my mother, had died,
and he said, "Well, all of our names
are written in the Book." I took this
to be a reference to preordination
if not predestination. After

the conversation, I thought
about the Book--an elegant
symbol of fate, omniscience,
or both. The when, where,
and how of our deaths are out
there, no doubt about that.

But are they fixed, as in a book
already printed? The uncle
I've never known well thinks
so. Since we don't get a good
look at the Book, the fixed
points aren't legible to us,
so my uncle's as much in
the dark as I; it's just that
he stands confidently there.

I wonder if the Book is also a
log and therefore included
the phone-call with my uncle
before the call occurred. Could
be. Who knows? I have to say,
that's how the phone-call seemed.

I wonder how people talked
about predestination before
books started getting made,
but from this uncle's point of
view, I should maybe stop
wondering so much.


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom