Consciousness

Consciousness floats in virtual air
like a weightless golden pear
the body imagines with its blood.

Consciousness is absolutely
absurd, partly because it
can reason. Not least of all,

intuition forms an illuminating
shadow. In closing, let us
pray, and let us note

that prayer is one way consciousness
expresses its hope that it's not
talking only to itself.


hans ostrom 2016

Patented New Sonnet Form

Pablo Parabola patented the ten-line
sonnet for a sleeker look, increased
speed, and tighter handling. Interviewed
at his apartment in the Pommes de Plume
hotel, Parabola said, "We;ll be in full

production before Fall." Critics
say he and his investors have grossly
overestimated the market for ten-line
sonnets, leaving aside the question of
demand for sonnets globally.


hans ostrom 2016

Medusa's Morning

One morning Medusa put her hair up all
in snakes. What do you think? she asked
her lover. Looks great! he said. You didn't
even look! she said. I did so, said he,
and it looks terrific. At the same time,

your hair looks hungry, and what people
forget is that snakes stink.  He got out
of bed and asked Medusa what she thought
of the red hawk he'd attached to his groin.

She said, You're scaring my hair.

hans ostrom 2016

However

"However."  Strange word. Gets away
with looking ordinary. How. Ever.

One part has to do with in what manner;
the other part, with time. However
makes as much sense as Wellsoon.
"Wellsoon, we did find the broth too salty."

However, "however" is as reliable
as a steel pry-bar and never wears out.
It leverages a turn
of direction in writing, speech, and thought.
Whatever it means, it functions
and does so more slowly than but.

In the U.S., however has enjoyed
a long friendship with the semicolon;
however, that probably doesn't
interest you.


hans ostrom 2016

Clusterville

I'm living out in Clusterville. Out here
we cluster up the huts and houses, apartmental
lego-heaps, and all the rest. The clustering
seems fine. I have a job at Clusterworks.

The Clusterwork motto is
"Trust Your Clustering to Us!"
We've been trained never to omit
the exclamation point.

Believe it or not, my wife Clemithia
is a direct descendant of one
of Clusterville's founders--
Alchemia von Kluster,

who was German by birth,
Belgian by culture. A grim,
exacting gourmand, so they
say. Aggressive pacifist.

Clemithia takes after her.
I would call my spouse
an imposing figure.
You would, too.

Again by marriage I'm related to
Colonel Jean von Kluster,
who's first and last stand
occurred just outside Clusterville:
he sank his savings into
a failed jousting tournament.

Look,I'm no deep thinker, no
existentialist, anarchist,
or pub philosopher. I work in
Clusterville because that's what I do.
I like self-evident just fine.

Other people call the shots
and legions more (the sad cases)
believe they have control.

There are clusters of people,
places, and things in Clusterville.
That is all you really need to know,
amen. Come to Clusterville.
Call it home. Stay.


hans ostrom 2016

Having a Word with It

I'm never quite sure of who you are,
depression. I ought to hate you. I don't.

It's like you're some kind of gray-garbed
circuit judge. You ride into town, glower
down at me, then summon me to a cold

brown room where we sit silently.
You like it fine. I start to stare

into a pit I've hallucinated.
Eventually you leave. Or seem to.
When they finally sort out all
the brain science, your current name,

depression, will seem as quaint
as a Model T. Anyway, . . .


hans ostrom 2016

Black's Beach

(the clothing-optional beach near San Diego)

The heavy sand is as black as the stuff
that abides with gold in the Sierra.

Black-suited surfers march
along the beach in martial service
to the obsession. A nude

woman enacts yoga poses,
and I wonder why they never
offered that kind of thing
in high school physical education.
A solid replacement for
the badminton unit.

I sit naked on a purple towel
laid out on a washed-up wooden pallet.
There are other old washed-up
hippies (not the most accurate word,
but it will do) who dot the beach
in stupendous sunshine and fresh air.
Erosion-scarred brown bluffs rise above us.

I suppose we're absently wondering
where all the parties went to.
Answer: nowhere.  They just go on
without us. Somewhere we got

separated from our pods and
ended up on this beach.

It's not a big gulp of freedom.
Only a sip or two. Now a brown
young woman wades out into surf,
presents her body to the ocean,
dips her hands into the water
as if it were cool liquid silver.

She brings her hands to her face.
She runs her fingers through her hair.
I lie back like an old sea lion
and close my eyes.


hans ostrom 2016

The Shark Teeth Underground

I bought six shark teeth today.  Small ones.
Inexpensive. Also cheap, although not from
a shark's point of view. They came in a week
plastic box with a black foam mini-mattress.

They look a little like bobcat teeth.
Their color runs from taupe to blonde.

They remind me of when I bought
a chocolate-brown baby octopus
at Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco,
when I was 8. These cheap,

eccentric creature keepsakes
(my mother's word) keep me going.
They symbolize a child's economy,
which dictates that all the stuff

in the world, like sticks, rocks, bones,
and bugs, is a vast, astonishing
pile of wealth. You can just pick
some of it up and have it! Holy shit!

You can even covet it and save it.
But most of it you just let go,
a re-investment in the infinite treasure.

The economies in which I've had
to participate in sell things the seem
necessary or desirable.  But almost
all these things harbor a tumor
of dullness. That's why advertising

must work so hard to distract
us from the dispirited quality
of goods and services.  As a
practical matter, the more I keep

current on child economics,
the more sanguine I am as I go
undercover into the adult,
capitalist polity. My

code-name today is Shark Teeth.
If you want to join this underground,
you're already a member, and remember:
the wealth we explore, the miraculous
forms that delight us--they're cool
and inexpensive, often totally free.


hans ostrom 2016

To Eddie Some Weeks After the Winter Solstice

Oceans are the ultimate artists, Edward,
more variously capable and constantly
original than earthquakes, rivers, ice,
and erosion. Of course, human art,

in contrast to all of these, is not
really in the conversation. Human art
is always a bit of a knock-off.
Sculpture, painting, surrealism,
realism, epic tales, Dada, absurdism,
comedy, tragedy, scrambled genres,
modes, and impulses, and forms
we cannot even grasp abound

in oceans, by oceans. The oceanic
opus is constantly changing,
ever-expanding, and utterly
unconcerned about audience,
remuneration, and critical success.

Sad Plato, when he was thought-seeking
for ideal forms, should have recalled
the ideal generator of forms:
the sea! The Greek seas alone
would have cheerfully overwhelmed
Plato's wee dialogues and allegories
and turned them into fantastic
shapes to nourish starved imaginations.

What do you think about that, Eddie
of La Jolla? I know how you like your
Plato and his greatest invention Socrates,
who, like a professional wrestling
star, always won his contests.

As you warm up your pipes to sing
in response to me, Eddie, let me stand you
to a salty tequila cocktail, an
ocean unto itself, some say.

hans ostrom 2016

Early Days Yet

Come all you
myopic visionaries,
procrastinating inventors,
and clumsy magicians!

Join us in the project
we like to call
"Ambition and Other
Toxic Ideas."

We're not sure
what we want
out of the endeavor,
or where it will

occur. Or when.
Or even what
the endeavor may
entail. But

we're warming up
to the notion,
and we've given
serious thought

to a mission-statement.
No doubt you're
as excited as we are
about all this.


hans ostrom 2016

Our Conversation So Far

Are they than closer appear
may mirror in objects? Seated
while belt seat fasten your
under vest life!

Refrigerated keep. Sale
individual for labeled not
unit this, all right?

Tough song, fly
along, boogety, boogety.

You count my blessings
if that's what interests you.
I don't think blessings
belong in a ledger.

Yes, there is at least
one mirror in every
object humans perceive.

Experience online
exclusive an to redirect
we as wait please. Please.

There are no objects
in mirrors. Mirrors
are objects.


hans ostrom 2016

If Riven

Mary Christ
cross criss

Joseph cross
rises boss

early daze
Christ bright

Jesus common
strums some

romans romans
romans romans

occupied rocks
goats flock

sun sun
sun sun

no details
know details

the hole
whole thing

the holes
whole blood

thing blood
thing well

no not
bread no

push back
pay back

you'll pay
back pay

push back
react shun

done it
done sun

son done
it done

Christ whoa
woe Jesus

yes mystery
mystery no

lore lore
lore lore

gospel true
blue truth

anyway anyway
rising rising

risen and
if then

and when
if riven

riven risen
end there



hans ostrom 2016

Alice Axe

Action hero Alice Axe
drops explosives down
the rabbit hole and obliterates
imagination. Her carved,

starved body glistens
and flexes for the camera
set-ups. Acting is
manufacturing. She's

on a mission. Certain
accounts depend on her.
The box-office weekend
slouches this way.

Know you are supposed
to believe phantoms
want to invade the nation.
Huh? Yes, oh yes.

Wonderland had it
coming. That is
from the movie, Alice
Axe has been celebritized.


hans ostrom 2016

Sistern Chapel

iron steel
steal, irony

please court
short pleas

angel angel
math moth

no pattern
known patter

sistern chapel
water sister

pleasure tongue
sung leisure

incense friend
ginseng end


hans ostrom 2016

It's Not Pretentious If You Don't Insist On It

(found language)

TACOMA YACHT CLUB
Boats Not Necessary




hans ostrom 2016

Regrets

Lots of people tell me
they have no regrets
about anything, they don't
believe in regrets. Because
they're people, I suspect
they're lying. So what?

Then there are those who
urge other people never
to have regrets, as if regrets
were bunions and not
potential signals of a
conscience. These people
aren't lying. They're tyrants
of one sphere or another.


hans ostrom 2016

Use Your Head

I spend all day hauling my head around,
sometimes setting it down on a pillow.
My head's attached to my body (should
go without saying?). Even if it weren't

I'd bring it along because that's where
I most like to be. I've often gone into
my head, mostly for fun, not to mention
narcissism, but also to get way

from the world, which is inexplicable
and excessive, and from people,
who are--well, you know. We'll never
know whether I would have gotten

along better with an evolved
version of Neanderthals.


hans ostrom 2016

This Facility

Unintended consequences follow
and then lead. Inconsequential
tendons don't exist, although the
import of those meat-strings comes
clear often only after snap or pull.
I'm not proud of the way my mind

works. It stumbles around
like an optimist in a dark cemetery,
where names on stones change
themselves but change back
before anyone notices. Also

graveyards seem the least
likely place to see or hear
a ghost because if you have
freedom of movement, why
wouldn't you get out of there,
haunt elsewhere, and see
the sights? In conclusion,

the staff is threatening
to take away my privileges,
as if my haunted mind were
powerful; and as if I weren't
the owner-operator of
this facility.


hans ostrom 2016

Night Train in Fog

You hear the fractured racket of the beast,
its engine, horn, and steel on steel. The total
sound is one of the heaviest you'll know.
Fog's turned the invisible train into
a backstage cataclysm. Imagination

rises like an exhausted porter. A Black
stoker sings early versions of "Casey Jones."
Jackie Gleason offers Sherlock Holmes
a highball. John Henry stirs a kettle
of beans for hungry hobos. Dr. Zhivago

and Lara get it on joyfully in a sleeper,
and Agatha Christie shows Hitchcock
a few card tricks, but he can't concentrate
because a platinum blond just entered
the dining car. Butch and Sundance

ride disguised as old Methodist women.
Johnny Cash and Leadbelly sing
a train song, and Rain in the Face
(the engineer) leans on the horn hard.
It ain't no whistle.


hans ostrom 2016

Captured Pawns and Pieces

They're relieved to get off work early.
Two pawns have a threesome with a rook.
The other rook smokes weed. A knight
gets drunk with a bishop, a medieval
tradition. Soon the queen shows up,
sweating, the sleeves of her robe
rolled up. "We're horribly mis-managed.
Let's unionize," she says. No one listens.


hans ostrom 2016