The Commonplace Sage

The sage on the mountain's a commonplace
sage. He's suspicious of gurus. He invites
you to spend only what you have, buy
no more than you need.  The commonplace

sage tells poets they're only as good
as their latest poem. A laurel's just
a shrub. The sage says if you want
to argue politics, debate yourself.

Sage suggests you re-familiarize
yourself with arithmetic, popular
music, and the software known
as Crap Detector 2.0.  Thinks

you might want to find the good
sense you misplaced when you
were a big deal there for a while.
This common sage sings a tune

or two, and wow: here comes a
herd of memories across a neon
pasture, and the needed card
floats up on the river, and

Frank Zappa clowns around in

heaven with Steve Allen's toupé.

Hans Ostrom, 2012

People Who Go Fishing

We sit. We stand. We walk
and wade and float and wait.
We work with things
from a diminutive realm:

string, bits of cloth, feathers,
miniature coins and jewelry,
lead pearls, worms, tiny eggs,
eyelets, small wheels, thin sticks.

Like psychologists, geologists,
and those obsessed with Hell,
we're obsessed with a submerged
dominion, about which we invent
myths, toward which we harbor
resentments, and into which
we cast gleaming desires.
We are deceivers of water-creatures.
We are lords of the sky-world.

We do not travel water to get somewhere.
To us, Odysseus was an abject fool.
Our world is lyric, not epic.  Ahab
was a reckless tourist. Jonah was bait.
And yes, we know whales aren't fish,
so be quiet.  Ssshhh! Did you hear that?
Did you feel that? We live for small
signs of animated resistance, for
the life on the line.  No, it is not
time to go. There is plenty of light left.


Hans Ostrom, 2012

Hiram Goes to Cafe Fear

(another in a series of "Hiram" poems)

Hiram Goes To Café Fear

Hiram thinks, “Here I am sitting inside

my shirt, shoes, and trousers, on a chair

at a table in a café.  I am afraid

of dying.  Also of nothing.  I tell

a waitress what I want for lunch.

She brings it.  I eat it, holding off

fear for a while.  I don’t know

who or why I am.  I am aware

of sitting, afraid, inside my clothes

and body.  This is me, I think. 

So this is me and this my fear.”

Hans Ostrom, 2012

Spiders' Migration

(re-posting a seasonal poem)


Spiders' Migration

Northern Hemisphere, September: spiders

come inside.  They slip through seams

to here, where summer seems to them

to spend the winter.  Their digits tap out

code on hardwood floors.  They rappel

from ceilings on out-spooled filaments

of mucous, measuring the place.  Sometimes

they stay just still.  Paused.  Poised.

It’s not as if spiders wait for us

to watch them, or even as if they

wait.  Rather, octavian motion

is so easy, syncopated, and several

that stillness surely exhilarates spiders

just arriving from the Northern Hemisphere.

It’s time for us to enter equal days and

equal nights, to pluck the filament between

fear of and fascination with spiders

moving in.

Hans Ostrom, 2012

This Happens To Be It

All right, thought Hiram,
this happens to be it--
what is real. I am
walking home on a sidewalk,
and I am drunk,
and I am passing by
a twenty-foot boat
that is situated
between the sidewalk
and someone's yard,
and sophisticated engines
driving cars
are passing me,
and I look at my distorted
shadow exactly
as I did when I was seven
years old: it is
that elongated,
legs-go-forever
shadow.  And I am:
so what? And I
am walking home,
knowing the way,
what is home (?),
what is the way (?),
is this what is (?),
and I must go on
as if this is what is,
and I keep walking.


Hans Ostrom, 2012

Saloon Statment

You know (she said),
it's very important
to remember
the difference between
getting crazy
and
just being
a little
bit
drunk,
okay?



Hans Ostrom, 2012

A Poet's Real Fear

There is
so much time to say
something and
so little
to say.


Hans Ostrom, 2012

"Proof," by Brendan Kennelly

Poem: Not Safe For Work?

Not Safe For Work?

I'll tell you what's
not safe for work,
says the waitress dead
on her feet;
the roofer in 104 degree
heat; the
truck driver, fire
fighter, soldier,
foundry worker,
heat-vent installer.

I'll tell you what's
not safe
for work, says
the warehouse-worker, the
unveiled woman, the
veiled woman, oil-
driller, welder,
seamstress, factory-
worker. What's

not safe for work is
work.


Hans Ostrom, 2012

Found Poem: Followed

the new sexy
you
is following
you

would you
like to follow
the new sexy
you?


hans ostrom

Found Poem: Content

your content
will
return
shortly.


--hans ostrom

"Could Be," by Langston Hughes

"Swift Month," by Denise Levertov

Commissioned Sonnet

Going through old computer-files and -documents, I found a sonnet I'd written that had been commissioned.  Someone from the Politics and Government Department where I teach (U. of Puget Sound) had asked me to write a poem to be read at their departmental graduation-gathering.  This was in 2008.

About all I can say for the sonnet is that it is worth at least what they paid me for it, nothing.

I thought a sonnet--or some traditional form--was appropriate for the occasion. Every so often, I like to write a "commissioned" thing.  It's an interesting challenge.

Commencement Bay is the name of the harbor next to Tacoma.


Sonnet: To Graduating Seniors in Politics and Government

We’ve been the captains of your classes here,

The admirals of your splendid senior theses.

Today we are mere ensigns of good cheer

As you depart these arches, bricks, and trees.

Your learning is your cargo. Politics

And Government’s the dock from which you sail.

The world out there is one we hope you’ll fix.

May warm and fairly traded winds prevail.

Now, after several years at Puget Sound,

You’ll voyage from your own Commencement Bay

To ports where possibilities abound.

With pride we raise a toast to you and say:

In governing your lives, be politic

And always vote for wisdom—that’s the trick.

Hans Ostrom, 2008, 2012

"One," by Langston Hughes

"the area of pause," by Charles Bukowski

It Means to You

It means to you, whatever
you're thinking now
as you sit in a chair, in
a seat, on a bench, looking
at the screen in your
hand, on your lap, on
your desk, on a wall.

It means to you, what
you're thinking
of the noise around you, of
your anxiety, of this
indescribable warren
of ideas, memories, neurons
firing, appetites, instincts--
all of it in its all-at-onceness:
mind.

It means to you, the taste
in your moth of coffee or beer or food
or smoke or your own mouth,
or someone else's. There's
the ache in one place, resentment

in another, in nerves and brain.
Are the unsatisfactions worse
than the dissatisfactions? Are
you comfortable enough
but still bored, angry, afraid,
frustrated? Are you looking
at someone now? It means

to you, it is meaning to you,
and you have been meaning, too.


Hans Ostrom, 2012

To Aging Friends

Oh, my aging friends,
what illnesses and
infirmities await us?

We hope to sail
along indefinitely
in these bodies.

We know we'll
be intercepted
and boarded by pirates.

The rigging creaks.
Boat-loads of young
women pass.

At best, they ignore
us, at worst laugh
at our sad crafts.

The aging are
a patient armada sailing
under a tie-dyed flag.

Ah, my aging friends,
let's drink wine in moonlight
on this our rolling deck.


Hans Ostrom, 2012

"Midnight Dancer," by Langston Hughes

A Few Moments in the Comparisonator

Her eyes were as blue as not
sky or sea but, but, uh--
cornflowers.

The moon looked like not
cheese, a face, a balloon, but
a flashlight shined
on
varicose veins.

My love for you is stronger
than my breath
after I've eaten
raw onions and Limburger
cheese.  What? You don't
eat raw onions or
Limburger cheese?

A sadness enveloped me.
Like an envelope. Right?

When you take off your
clothes, baby, I don't
think about comparisons.


Hans Ostrom, 2012

Consciousness, This Space

This customary space, consciousness (as you hear
the hiss of evening traffic): a pliable, warped
sphere with membrane boundaries. Sometimes

the activity called thinking permeates
the membrane. And there you are,
situated in a non-view. 

Not so much detached as unbounded.
You see a gleam for a while without
knowing or naming it; it isn't gleam.

....Chrome....toaster....fender...glass...?
Utterly receptive perception . . .

You settle into out-settledness.

Sounds. Blurs.  What is there
enwraps you loosely like
the lightest fabric. There's

the merest hint of, well,
forever (as you hear the
hiss . . .)


Hans Ostrom, 2012

What My Job Is

Oh, I know what Management
thinks my job is, don't worry. It's
to help those to whom they
report report that a profit
was made. My family and truth
to tell my friends, and me too,
we think my job is to keep
my job. Beyond that, no one
cares about my work, not
even the ones who send me
bills.  Because computers
and some people trying to
keep their jobs send me
the bills, which, if I don't
pay--well, Management there
manages a legal department.

When I'm on the job, I
do my work.  Something
I don't tell anyone is this: I
always do something to
hang on to a piece of myself.
What that is varies. Sometimes
people see me doing that kind of
thing, a self-saving thing, and
I'm not giving examples. Anyway,
I see people at the place
looking at me, trying to figure
why I did that or said this.
That kind of thing, that's
not in the job-description.


Hans Ostrom, 2012

All Work and No Play at a Cafe

(based on found language)



All Work and No Play at a Cafe


Damn, I partied last light. Hell
yes I did. What's the saying?
All work and no play makes
Jack a--uh--a--a whatever.
Is that my latte?


Hans Ostrom, 2012

Perfect Is Over-rated

(riff on language, Italicized,  found on Tumblr)


Perfect is Over-rated

I'm not perfect, and I don't want
to be. Because being perfect
is so over-rated.  I mean,
I'd actually rank imperfection
above perfection.  For one

thing, perfection doesn't exist.
Read that old fart, Plato.  You
can't get to Ideal from here,
so it's as bad as nothing.

Plus everybody I know
who's supposedly perfect
turns out to be, you know,
killers, rapists, head-cases,
cutters, pukers, yellers.
Dangerous or sad. 
Less than optimal, I'm thinking.

So, yeah, I wouldn't put
perfect on my fantasy team.


Hans Ostrom, 2012

On Deciding Not to Become Wealthy

The evidence suggests getting rich
was not one of my priorities.
I studied literature and took up
writing poetry: any questions?

Also, I've always worked. Rather
late in the game, I noticed most
rich people don't work a lot.
Or at all.

Way back in the ago-era,
I ran my own weed- and grass-
cutting business, age 15.

Since then: different wage-jobs--
labor at a gravel-plant, hod-
carrying, washing pots,
writing sports articles, pounding
nails, digging trenches,
reading standardized tests.

Also a salaried job. Professor.
I see now that this was the path
for me.  I think if I were rich, I'd
be very nervous, less generous,
and much more of a fuck-up
than I already have been.

That's my report.



Hans Ostrom, 2012

Poem: A List of Parts

In this package
you will find the
following parts
for the poem
you'll assemble.

Please match the
parts to this list
before you begin
assembly. 

1. Sounds
2. Letters [26]
3. Words  [75--you may
order more]
4. Marks (punctuation)
5. Pictures in the mind
[not included but implied]
6. Space
7. Sample title
8. Sample beginning [2]
9. Sample ending [2]
10. Stanza-templates [6--you
may order more]



Hans Ostrom, 2012

The Last Automobile

Hear that sound?
That's the motor
of the last car
to go over the cliff.

Now the authorities
will roll up highways
and store them in a
desert like old
spools of thread.

Wild horses will
look down on them
from synthetic, pastured
plateaus above.


Hans Ostrom, 2012

"Song (Gone again is Summer)," by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Political Arguments

Nobody knows what they're talking about.
Or, they know what they're talking 
about only because they made it up.

Judging from the noise and heat,
you might think these people
really believe they affect outcomes.

You might even think
the politicians to whom they're
loyal are loyal to them!

These people arguing
are like watchdogs barking
and growling, guarding

a piece of turf no one sees.
Political arguments
are imaginative enterprises. 


--Hans Ostrom, 2012

Bed Linens

Sand from a beach-woman's feet,
crumbs from something I ate,
books, pens, notebooks, socks--

none of such stuff in bed
ever bothered me. Still:
fresh sheets, especially
when a person's gripped
by flu--celestial comfort.

There's something mournful
and small--not rising to the level
of tragedy--about a stripped bed.

It's as if Sleep up and quit
that room and moved on
to another town.

--Hans Ostrom, 2012

"Moving Books into a New Study," by Robert Bly

Should Be Forbidden

It is customary
but not mandatory
for the old to say
of the young, "We
know more than they."
It is customary 
but not mandatory
for the young to say
of the old, "Who
cares what they know?"
It should be forbidden
of the old to say or
to think of the young,
"Who cares what
they know?"


Hans Ostrom copyright 2012

Found Poem: The Shit Parents Say

Parents don't notice
that the shit
they say
actually hurts.


alicelock, Tumblr.

I Placed a Blue Man in Tennessee

The wind scars
the surface of the lake.
He's standing there
not quite awake.

The fool stands
in mud--yes that is he,
the saddest man
in Tennessee.


--Hans Ostrom, copyright 2012

Tavern Haiku

"I put the sip in
dissipation," said the old
guy, tasting the rye.


Hans Ostrom, copyright 2012

A Presidential Election and Rhythm n Blues

Rhythm & Blues, that American
genre, holds a tale of USA.

Inside R&B a White
presidential candidate
and a Black presidential
candidate stare
at each other. Listening
to the music, you may
have to move down
many corridors, streets,
and roads before you see
them standing, staring there.

But if you have known R&B
in your life, you know
you'll see them. It is night.

Although they are only
staring, the scene feels
dangerous.  The USA
feels dangerous. If you

have known R&B in your
life, you know you can
hear danger even in a
song that is all about
sweet love. Round and round
you go, USA, round & round.

--Hans Ostrom, 2012

And So It Begins--the Semester, That Is

I'm re-posting a short poem to mark the beginning of the semester or quarter at many colleges.

"Dialogue on a College Campus"

Found Poem: Saloon Note

Hey Philip--about the Felix
THANG--
NO DRINKS until he pays
Miranda 17 dollars--
you dig?

--Hans Ostrom, 2012

Found Poem: Yeah, He Must Have Died

Yeah, he must
have died because
he's trending
on
Twitter.


--Hans Ostrom, 2012

"The Reassurance," by Thom Gunn

"Beggar Woman," by Charles Reznikoff

["Well, Spring overflows the land"], by Lorine Niedecker]

Bats Right, Throws Left

I came down from the mountains
a devout S.F. Giants fan, thanks
to radio and the Sacramento Bee.

I came down from the mountains
never having played pee-wee,
Little League, Legion, or Babe Ruth ball.
I was a baseball immigrant.

I batted left because my brother
Sven, a leftie, taught me to hit. I'd
become what I'd learn was a
dead-pull-hitter.  And
I had a glove from the Montgomery
Ward catalog.  So in high school,

I could hit the cut-off man, catch
a fly, charge a base-hit, and bunt.
At bat I was afraid of the ball:
No, not quite right. Conceptually,
I hadn't found evidence that one
shouldn't be afraid of the ball,
especially after team-mate Eddie,
nicest guy but wild, drilled me twice
in the back.  Still, I went three-
for-three one bright Spring day,
with a base-on-balls, runs scored.

But out in right field, a pasture
made for me, I often drifted
mentally, considered slipping
away ("Slip away, slip away ...").

Someone would hit a liner out
there. Manager, teammates,
and the sprinkling of fans would
say, Hey, where's the right-fielder?

And I'd be lying down with a brown
woman in a blonde meadow, or
taking a midnight train to Rome,
or writing this poem.

--Hans Ostrom 2012

Spam Found-Poem: "Hot Workplace Free"

Hot workplace free!
Workplace condition: your house
Years old: older
Pay schedule: pays for each hours
We are waiting for your reply.

HOW NOVELS BEGIN: Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen

But It Does

I don't know
why the yellow-jacket
stands motionless
on a pale green
wrinkled new leaf
of lettuce in sunlight.
But it does.
I don't know
why the universe
keeps occurring.
But it does.

--Hans Ostrom, 2012

"Portrait of Galileo as a Young Man (#5)," by George Keithley

"Libido," by Rupert Brooke

Not Afraid of Zombies

I'm not afraid
of no zombies.
They walk too slow.
I'm not afraid
of no werewolves.
They're dogs, you know.

The monsters
to keep an eye on
are the people
who seem okay.
They'll mess you up
every which damn way.

--Hans Ostrom, 2012

"If You Are Squeamish," by Saphho

Every Revery

Every revery swells
the sails of one's invisible ship.
Thinking is traveling,
and the brain is wet and salty.
The mind it harbors
is bigger than the grandest
ocean we have ever mapped
and bigger than the biggest sea
we've ever dreamed.

--Hans Ostrom, 2012

Of Poverty

“What is harder for the nonpoor to see is poverty as acute distress: The lunch that consists of Doritos or hot dog rolls, leading to faintness before the end of the shift. The “home” that is also a car or a van. The illness or injury that must be “worked through,” with gritted teeth, because there’s no sick pay or health insurance and the loss of one day’s pay will mean no groceries for the next. These experiences are not part of a sustainable lifestyle, even a lifestyle of chronic deprivation and relentless low-level punishment. They are, by almost any standard of subsistence, emergency situations. And that is how we should see the poverty of so many millions of low-wage Americans—as a state of emergency.”

—	Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed

The Checklist

reasonably healthy today? check
not in poverty? check
enough to eat? check
not in jail? check
got a job? check
have someone to love? check
memory intact? check
not in imminent danger of getting killed or raped or both? check
getting laid? check, check
benefiting from helping someone? check
access to clean water? check
indoor plumbing that works? check
lights and heat? check
roof over your head, and a bed? check
something to read? check
then count your fucking blessings and/or stop whining

--Hans Ostrom, 2012

"Life Is Fine," by Langston Hughes

Ill-Equipped by Technology

Technology has ill-equipped us.
When are we ever not behind
its trends? The nature

of capital requires us either
to be behind or to believe
we are behind or both.

The next invented, mass-
produced, and marketed
things wait in tiresome,

predictable ambush.
Place: a box canyon
of forced choices.

Think of specific
gadgets and gizmos
you don't own--

which
you will soon purchase,
by choice.

Consider whether
this new bought thing will
really improve your life.


Copyright 2012 Hans Ostrom

Nothing Personal, Just Business

When they say,
It's nothing personal--it's just
business, it's personal,
for the lie itself concerns
personality, the intimacy
of betrayal. When they say
it's just business, they mean
the opposite. They mean business

is all--it governs. Have you
known a time when business
didn't govern? When they say
these things, keep
your distance from them,
from these people who are like
dogs on chains, the chain
being business and personal.

Copyright 2012 Hans Ostrom

"My Work and Me," by Maya Angelou

"Sestina: Ellis Island, Amelia Earhart," by Hans Ostrom

"Here are the Skies," by A.E. Housman

"Love Song," by A.R. Ammons

Warm-Up Exercise for Poets: Adjective/Noun/ABC

Just a warm-up exercise.  You'll infer the "rules" from this example immediately.

Adept Zebra
Burnt Yams
Chrome Xylophone
Dry Wall
Elegant Veranda
Flexible Udders
Good Times
Hot Salsa
International Rutabaga
Jeweled Quilt
Knowing Purveyor
Lone Osprey
Murderous Narcotic
Narcoleptic Man
Obsolete Language
Prescient Knight
Questionable Jester
Restless Intern
Surly Handler
Tainted Garnish
Unique Fragrance
Venerable Epic
Wistful Dog
Xenophobic Cleric
Young Barista
Zealous Attitude.

Found Poem: Sign Beside Freeway

GRINDING AND
PAVING
NIGHTS


--Hans Ostrom

Found Poem: Four Signs Nailed to an Urban Fir Tree

MOVING &
*
CHEAP SMOKES AND BEER
*
NEED A CONTRACTOR?
*
PEST CONTROL
*

--Hans Ostrom

"Correction," by A.R. Ammons

Carter Monroe on Jack Spicer

Here is a link to a post by Carter Monroe on the 9th Street Laboratories blog.  Monroe, as you may know, is a poet, novelist, publisher, and music-expert hailing from North Carolina.  I sometimes refer to him as the sage of N.C., in fact.

Spicer was one of the troubled geniuses of the Beat Movement in San Francisco, pushing the limits of poetry and counter-cultural thought as much as he could and influencing a range of writers, including Robert Duncan. In my view, Spicer also anticipated much of what LANGUAGE poetry has attempted to do.

In the post, Monroe notes Spicer's influence on his own work and places his reading of Spicer in a biographical and cultural context in the 1970s.  The post includes excerpts from Monroe's "Spicer Series" of poems--great work.

"Into the Folds of It," by Hans Ostrom

"Across the Fields . . .," by Herman Hesse

"Somewhere or Other," by Christina Rossetti

"Dare," by Langston Hughes

Lines for a Brief Meditation

Just breathe.
Thank you.
Fo sho.
Fuck off.
No way.
You bet.
Who knows?
Bite me.
What next?
Why? Sigh.
Sigh why.
Now, then.
Right on.
Let's roll.
Hell, no.
Heck, yeah.
Be cool.
Say what?
Damn straight.
All y'all.
Love, love.
Now, now.
How, now?
When, then?
Not now.
Do this.
Bye bye.
Farewell.
Just breathe.
[Repeat, as needed.]

Copyright 2012 Hans Ostrom

In City Lights Books, 21st Century

In City Lights Books, 21st century, one young
cashier, trans-gendered, wears a gold silk turban.
There are tattooed Asian characters on each
finger. It is a regal performance of difference
and what's hip. A sign reads,

"Abandon despair, all ye who enter here."
Cute--and isn't that more or less Disney's
message, too?  The old Beat bookstore's
a wee profit-center now--"like a library,
where books are sold," but not lended
or given away.  Debit, credit, cash.

Truth is, there was as much counter-cultural
spirit in a Willie Mays basket-catch, a Navajo
steel-worker's shift, a Chinese laundry-worker's
laughter, and a Mexican's quick apple-picking
fingers as in On the Road or Howl. 

Ferlinghetti's an entrepreneur,
Jack and Allen earned canonical turf,
berets off to them, well done.

In the U.S., youth and capital absorb all cultural
revolutions that can be commodified. Which
ones can't be commodified? The turbaned
cashier asks her co-worker, "Will you try
to keep this job part-time, or just take the
higher paying one?" The latter says,
"Receipt with you or in the bag?"

The best minds of any generation are
widely dispersed, hard to identify,
impossible for any one to claim, and
often not known until much later.

Some minds in bodies pass by the
bookstore in sunlight. The space once
occupied by Jazz at Pearl's is up for lease,
estate commercial, estate real.


Copyright 2012 Hans Ostrom

Don't Write About That

Don't write about that just
because you saw it and saw it
as you. Write about this, the folly
of a human trajectory as it's
superimposed on the universe,
which is a large, ongoing explosion.

Someone will say something
about concrete images, show-don't-
tell, that sort of stuff.  People
never weary of it. To you
it will sound like the sound
of a handsaw going through pine.

You'll pretend to listen but wonder
not why someone is talking but
why someone is talking to you.
Write about this.

Copyright 2012 Hans Ostrom

Fans of Soccer, Fans of Football

To fans of soccer ("football"), American
football ("football") looks like a muddle
of armored giants that periodically
organizes itself, bursts into chaos,
then settles into entropy again. The
field is marked in rows, an accountant's
worksheet, so business-like, so American.

To fans of American football, soccer
looks like a picnic of ants, a tedioous
lesson in futility (hours of no goals). The
field's an expansive meadow ready
for a housing development. There's much
activity and arguing but little productivity,
so European.

To many people, sport means too much,
as do most human activities. We indulge
in seriousness, especially, oh yes
especially where play is concerned.
So European, so American.


Copyright 2012 Hans Ostrom

Her Cool Naked Breasts

Her cool naked breasts:
so lovely to kiss. And
to suck. And her response
to that, subtle moans, a
word, and something like
laughter in her throat.

Then comes a kind
of gentle tumble into
the physical, mental
rest of it, the rest of
it, such riches of the
instants in which
two lives overlap.


Copyright 2012 Hans Ostrom

At a Restaurant Alone

Sometimes, when
you go to a restaurant
alone, the person
who greets you says,
"Will there be just
one, then?" You don't
know why the future
tense is used. And
you feel as if you've
committed an error.

Maybe, you think,
you should say,
"No, let me go back
out the door and grab
someone so there will
be two," or "No,
there's another person
inside me, trying to
get out," or "No,
set a place for each
of my three
imaginary friends,
in which case there
will be four, then."

Copyright 2012 Hans Ostrom

May I Clarinet Your Thighs?

"The formation of substitution and contamination in speech-mistakes is, therefore, the beginning of that work of condensation which we find taking a most active part in the construction of a dream."  --Sigmund Freud, Psychopathology of Everyday Life


May I clarinet your thighs
and explicate your savanna? If
you charm it to be desirable,
I should like to alluviate down
on the excellence established
between your doric expenditures.

Listen: Let me emigrate with you
on blue and mahogany. Let us
forest the open-air museum of our
deft velvet, our fragrant fur
and slick, moist rubrics.

Oh, my dearest pungent storm,
please tell me how you'd like your
candelabra ordained in ecstasy!


Copyright 2012 Hans Ostrom

Descriptors

bookworm, voluptuary, clodhopper,
fool, lummox, clown, dark horse,
horse's ass, sleeper, empath, recluse,
gadfly, hick, draught-horse, coward,
knot-head, stalwart, naif, hustler,
rabble, contrarian, soft-touch,
laborer, pedant, poet, scavenger,
hack, scholar, idealist, vagabond,
hayseed, addict, loser, winner, dunce,
nobody, cast-off, straggler, pussy-hound,
scribbler, true-blue, oaf, lover, dabbler,
sensualist, mystic, literalist, plodder,
plodder. Plodder.

Copyright 2012 Hans Ostrom

Stuck in a Blues Song

I'm going down to the river. I'm
stuck in a blues song. Going down
to the train yard. Stuck in a blues
song. Going down the road, down
to a reckoning. Been stuck in a blues
song so long. Gonna get

evicted from an empty place, convicted
of a crime I did not do, and conscripted
to work in just an awful damn job, oh
yes. Going to go down to the juke joint,

where the blades flash and I lose my
cash, stuck in a blues song. Yeah, my
baby's long gone and I'm stuck, no luck,
yeah; yeah, stuck in a blues song.


Copyright 2012 Hans Ostrom

Entertainment

...The lovely and tainted Matilda,
ladies and rattlesnakes! Please
fire a round of a pause for Matilda!

Next up for your mooing pleasure
is the Present. Watch as two trillion
compressed images hammer your
optic nerve. Staggering is a normal

response. The bleeding will stop.
For paranoia lasting more than four
hours, call a fish, make a wish,
and give yourself an encore. You've
been a terrific audience!

Copyright 2012 Hans Ostrom

Desired Things

They're looking in a window
at things to buy. They
couldn't say why
they want the things,
except the items seem
fantastic. The light is such
that one of the people sees
in reflection the ghostly image
of a person who lives
on the street and works
full time at persisting. The
eyes of the buyer hover
on the image of this other
and then adjust to ignore
that light, that image, and
to see through glass again
at the desired things.

Copyright Hans Ostrom 2012

"This Journey," by Nazim Hikmet

"Babylon," by Siegried Sassoon

"Skeins," by Hans Ostrom

Html: Poem

and so you stand or sit
and drop these packets
of words into the electronic
river. off they float--

and yet they stay,
retrievable, for the river
flows and freezes both at once,
visible to all, theoretically.

in practice the electronic river
is a vast obscuring mass,
an orderly crash
of infodataimage.

these word-packets
are lost and found,
gone and here,
disappeared and
recovered like the legendary
vowels missing from the ancient,
mysterious word, Html,

the pronunciation of which
the imaginary scholars
at Borges University
bicker about over
glasses of claret
in the Minotaur Library.

Copyright 2012 Hans Ostrom