Any Storm in the Port

Any Storm in the Port


The coastline forms a question-mark,
which punctuates the sentence of this day.
From your apartment, you can't even see
buildings that have a view of the harbor.
No ship docking down there will bring
adventure to your life. Even the cargo,
quotidian as it is, will be shipped elsewhere.

Idly, you wish for strange weather--
hurricane, tsunami, dead-calm, lock-down
fog. This wish would be irresponsible if
related to a reality outside your head. You'd
never kill an albatross, interrupt a whale's
progress, organize or break a strike. You

are a cove that occasionally dreams
of being a bay. Viking--you might have
been a Viking. --Not a berserker hacking
villagers but a rower who would pull
the boat in a gray unmapped direction
for as long as it took or until you died.
You're that sort--a kind history never
notices from its panoramic view. You
pull your life through life.

Wall Street Metaphors

I don't know how appropriate it is to speak of having a retirement-account (in the making) as a blessing. Perhaps privilege is a better word. Having one, however, I was among those interested in the reported demise of such instiutions as Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch and the consequent effects on the stock market.

As a reader and poet, however, I soon became interested in the language used to describe the events: tsunami, collapse, plunge, tidal wave, earthquake, hurricane, even Armageddon. Yikes.

Of course, "Wall Street" itself is a kind of metaphor. I believe it's a metonym, in which a part of something is used to describe that something, so that the White House is sometimes used to describe the Executive Branch or the presidency. "The White House said today that . . . ." Certainly, a stock market exists on Wall Street, but all those stocks and bonds exist in vaults somewhere or, more likely, they exist only on computer-chips. I "own" stock only because some letters and numbers on a screen or a piece of paper say I do. Yikes, the Sequel.

I like this term "correction," too. I think it's meant to sound soothing. "The housing-market is undergoing a correction," it is said, or "Expect the stock market to correct." When I pause to consider the word, though, I realize that a mistake has been made--one that needs correction. "They" would probably prefer that I think of a ship making a slight "correction" (adjustment) in its course.

"Bubble" has been around a long time in connection with markets. As far back as the 18th century, I think, there was a speculative "bubble" concerning British colonial investments. It's a pretty interesting metaphor. Investments become as molecules of gas, which create a bubble, which pops, and the investments go . . . into the air. I still don't know what to make of the term "hedge," applied to investments. I think it means that you put a hedge around your investments, but hedges have never seemed that durable or protective to me. They're things birds can penetrate, after all. "Hedge-fund" just doesn't sound right. "I've decided to invest in hedges--chiefly laurel and boxwood. What do you think?"

In some ways, the financial world seems and is so technical, all mathematics and statistics. But when even the alleged experts discuss "the market," they seem quickly to slip into metaphor-speak. Nonetheless, I don't think I'd necessarily argue for putting a poet in charge of AIG, for example. By the way, who or what insures insurance companies? I guess "we" do--people who pay taxes.

We're There Yet

We're There Yet


Where shall we go? Hell is out--
much too expensive. Let's go where
the beach doesn't stink when the tide
hides. I wouldn't mind a town
that featured jobs for us but also
had people who have doubts about
strong opinions. Who am I, Kidding?
We're where we went.

This isn't home, but it will have to do.
Say, do you hear that dog barking?
That's where we are, my darling.
Why does the newspaper have
a "Travel" section every Sunday?
Is that supposed to be some kind of joke?
Why is there even a newspaper here?
The best news already happened.

Yesterday, a woman told me
she saw someone walking an
armadillo on a leash. She asked me,
"What kind of town is this?"
I said it's definitely a town
in which people might take
an armadillo for a walk. I
did not wish to mislead her.

We've arrived, regardless of
whether we planned to go here
or not. This is what our destination
looks like. Darling, do your best.

Sex

There is an online site called poemsabout.com, and as you might infer, it's a massive compendium of poems organized by topic. The lists of topics themselves intrigue. Here's just a piece of the alphabetical list:

africa
alone
america
angel
anger
animal
april
autumn
baby
ballad
beach
beautiful
beauty
believe
birth
brother
butterfly
candy

An arguably interesting writing-prompt would simply be to start with this list, begin making phrases, lines, and sentences (with additional words as needed), and see where the language led one. Richard Hugo advises this kind of approach (in The Triggering Town), when he advises poets to write "off the subject." His logic is that a poet's obsessions will out, one way or another, and that therefore one should concentrate on the medium (language), not the message. In fact, he advises that if you have a choice between conveying your "message" and writing language that is more pleasing than the language that contains the message, go with the pleasing language every time. Of course, much in writers resists such advice, which is counterintuitive because we are accustomed to thinking of language as transmission of message. Elsewhere Hugo humorously writes, "If you want to communicate, use a telephone."

At any rate, when I looked at the topics on poemsabout.com, I realized I'd never written a poem, strictly speaking, about sex. Of course I'd written some poems that referred to sex, one way or another, but I'd never written "sex" at the top of the page and started a poem. Certainly, "sex" seems like a very good topic for a poem; this claims seems indisputable. At the same time, poets who've been writing for a while know that the so-called sex-poem can be simply graphic, pornographic, and/or surprisingly not-sexy--that is to say, boring. Nevertheless, I decided to write a poem entitled "Sex," although the poem itself seems to be as much about language as it is about sex, no surprise there.


Sex


Sex is an excellent syllable, which
detonates meaning and is fillable
with much connotation. Of course
it conjures a deed done and conjugal
entanglements of bodies, when love
or lust gets down to earthy business,
when desire fires itself up and down
and on (and out of) the town. Sex
is also an implied question on a form

that may be answered M or F,
even if you’re in a mood to
answer Yes or No or Maybe So,
or "I'll get back to you later" or
"What about it?"Sex is not solely
one thing or two but more
than a few and human, too.

Sex at times is a semiotic nexus
(how sexual that sounds!) suggesting
bawdy, haughty, naughty, hottie
bodies, which touch and much more
in sex’s neck of the woulds and coulds,
the musts and lusts. Sometimes sex is
subtly intimated simply by the two-letter
syllable, it, as in getting it on, doing it,
making it, and even, alas, faking it. Oh

yes, there’s that other effing eff-word,
the one that rhymes with truck
and gets so often stuck in awkward syntactical
positions. Sex is life in frenzied love
with itself, all lips and hips, rounds
and flats, sultry strategies and tender
tactics, loads of lust and convoys
of cupidity, sensual consensual
congress. Sex can cause stupidity—
would you agree?—and vice versa.
Sex is a state of union, an exhilarating
expiration, a getting up, a getting with
it, a going down, a fear and fondness
of flying, a finding out and a knowing
about. It has been known to be
a bit of a chore, an occasional bore.
It’s mysterious and base, crude and holy,
much cause for consternation,
controversy, rules, and fools. Sex
is something else again. And again.

Hans Ostrom Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom

Concerning Vanity

[photo of Peter Sellers as Clouseau]



How vain of me to write and post a poem on vanity! Ah, the obscure, vainglorious trap of being a blogging poet.



Vanity Almost Rhymes Fully With Insanity


In those days of my alleged
importance, vanity
was my friend. She
maintained a list

of my accomplishments.
We sipped drinks
and traded admirations,
looking out over a bay.

We wore status
like our clothes.
We decided, vanity
and I, who was good

and worth our time. Once
vanity and I had realized
my importance, however,
I lost vanity as a friend. A

certain evaporation of
illusion left distance
between us. Obscurity
is my pal now. Oh,

obscurity makes me laugh,
and what a reliable friend.
We get together, evenings.
We warmly review

how vanity once charmed
us, the ways in which I was
ordinary at most and not
important back then. And now.


Hans Ostrom Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom

Ballad of the Micro-Town

[the photo is of Sierra City, California, population 225, elevation @ 4,250 feet above sea level]





Ballad of the Micro-Town


The mountains round that town are sheer
Massifs of stone. The town
Lies glinting like a coin below.
The river carves a frown.

I grew up there, so it was all.
It was the world to me.
That it and I were less than small
I'd learn eventually.

To have grown up in a small town
Is such a micro-fate,
A shrunken destiny, at best,
A morsel of time's bait.

If you are from a micro-town,
Bravo to you from me.
Our origins have blessed us with
Well known obscurity.



Hans Ostrom Copyright 2008

Hair-Cutter's Hiccups

Hair-Cutter's Hiccups


In the hair-cutting place, no longer
known as either a barber shop or salon,
I heard a child report, "Horses
are my favorite thing in the whole
universe." The woman cutting
my hair suffered from hiccups.
Of a recent customer, she said,
"He's the rudest person I've met--
hup!--in my hair-life so far." She
asked, "Sideburns trimmed?" I
answered, "Sure." She asked,
"'Shorter' or 'sure'?" I said,
"Sure, shorter." She said, "Hiccups
affect my hearing." I laughed.

Finished with my sideburns, she said,
"Look down." At the guillotine-line, she
let the humming clippers nibble my neck.
Later, she removed the black silk cape
from me with a bullfighter's flourish
and said, "There you are--hup!" We
looked in the mirror, where I
wasn't but where we saw each
other absurdly looking in the mirror.


Hans Ostrom Copyright 2008

Blogosonnet

Blogosonnet

There's nothing spherical about the space
In which innumerable web-logs all appear.
It's just Electronville, the selfsame place
That harbors radio, lightning, and fear.

A universe of language every day
Big-bangs itself into hyper-existence
On billions of screens--a cosmic spray
Of texts that is galactically immense.

The Web is actually a firmament
Of pixelated light. In fact, these blogs
Aren't blogs so much as wee lights meant
To light a billion mental strolls through bogs

Of collective and individual thought:
This is what Gutenberg and Gates hath wrought.


Hans Ostrom Copyright 2008

Transactional Poem

Transactional Poem


Although we've never met
and odds are never will, we
virtually converge here on line 3.
I deliberately left imagery home
because I wanted to meet you
unspecifically as I write and you
read this. I figured you didn't
want to be imagined, for you
already exist. You are who

you are, not what anyone
says you're like. Similitude
is difference with a mask on.
What happens next is that
you think what you will
inside your life, mind, body,
moment. You are the only

you you'll ever be, a verifiable
rarity. It is good to meet you
here without having to know you,
and there's a good chance you may
feel the same. Your reading this
transactional poem is what the poem
means. You perfect it by being there
and here. Reading, you finish the poem
I'm about to finish, none too soon.

In poetry, this qualifies as business
transacted. It's been a pleasure doing
language with you.


Hans Ostrom Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom

Creeks

Creeks



Should you be granted the luxury
of listening to a creek, you'll hear
sounds inside sounds, trickles within
rushes, and a constant water-sigh,
an exhalation of sound. Memory
hears names of alpine creeks: Deer
Creek, Haypress Creek, Hackman
Ravine. There's the unnamed creek
that carries water from the abandoned tunnel
of the Monarch Mine. Each of these

creeks featured an improvised mix
of bedrock and gravel, bank and bar,
riffle, pool, fall, foam, and whirl. Each
had systems of life--bird, bug, moss,
brush, fern, trout, worm. Sometimes
a deer: touching the glassy top of water
with a glossy black nose. Sometimes

something demanded
your respect--for example, a bear
making a splash of things and broadcasting
its bear-body, bashing brush, looking
at the creek as if the creek might be
swallowed in a gulp. A few times there

was I, absolutely incidental to the watershed,
hiking through holy sunlit days, flicking a fly
out on a leader, watching for fish, breathing
in shadows of ancient cedars, listening
to creek-water as it dropped into this
pool, space and time.

Hans Ostrom Copyright 2008

Details Inside

Last night, we were pumping gasoline into an automobile, and I looked at an exterior wall of the the gas-station, and I saw a sign that "said," "Buy 5 car-washes and get the 6th one free. Details inside."

I wondered what additional details lay inside. Maybe if I were to go in there and to inquire about the information on the sign, an employee would say, "Well, I think you'll find the details ironic. You actually don't get the 6th car-wash free!" Or perhaps she or he would have said, "No one has asked about the details before, so I'm ashamed to say I don't know what they are." Or: "You may not believe this, but if you purchase 5 car-washes, you automatically become a Knight of Malta."

I assume the details are, in an actuality inside the gas station, mundanely legalistic. You probably have to purchase the car-washes with a form of American currency--not that American currency actually exists. No rubles, no semi-precious gems. Or you have to purchase the car-washes all within 12 months. Or perhaps if you've purchased a used Soviet tank from the Black Market, you are not allowed to try to drive it through the car-wash.

That's why I didn't inquire. I wanted to make up some mythical details. I also thought, however, that a great generic title for almost any poem would be "Poem: Details Inside."

Dancers at Last Call

Dancers at Last Call


Where Zeno's paradox, Jesus's orthodox, and science's
anti-dox intersect stands my belief--nervously, like
a solitary traveler waiting for a bus that's more
rumored than scheduled. Science transforms mystery
into temporary knowledge, but mystery's infinite
at least, so we'll always not know. Incarnate, God
transmitted some counterintuitive news:
word, light, love, and peace are the way,
not war, invention, industry, and empire.
Who knew? The human response to the bulletin
was to hang the incarnation out to dry. Sigh.

Nonetheless, the wisdom haunts us, hounds us
down the positively positivist ages. By means
of knowing, we can never cross Zeno's line
of mystery. By means of belief, we hope we can
cross over, but hope lives in later. Faith
and science each need the other like two
dancers in a bar when Last Call comes. They
clutch one another, shuffle, and try to think
of something to say. The bartender, Zeno,
will count the tips and lock the door
behind them when they leave and get
slapped with cold wind and dark early
hours of tomorrow outside.

Hans Ostrom

Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom

Stick

I was walking across campus today when I overheard a conversation between students. The topic seemed to concern one person's wish to have another person drive his car somewhere. She did not seem entirely committed to the proposition of driving his car. He seemed to be marshaling arguments---until a logistical question popped into his mind. He asked, "Can you drive a stick?"

What a lovely question, especially if you are unfamiliar with American English. "Drive a stick? No, as a matter of fact, I've never driven a stick. Are you mad?" Stick-shift, obviously, was the term in play, but even that term attracts fascination. I believe it springs from a healthy desire to reduce technology to the basic. "Yeah, whatever, it's a lever, and it's connected to a transmission, but I say it's still a stick."

Shifting topics abruptly, I'll mention that, regardless of what toys we acquired for our son when he was quite young, sticks were his favorite implement of fun when he was 4 and 5 years old. We lived in Sweden for 6 months at that time, and he amassed quite a collection of Swedish sticks, which look remarkably like American sticks.

I suppose there's an argument to me made for sticks having been the first human tools, although Kubrick focused on the bone in his famous cinematic rendering of an evolutionary epiphany.

"Stick" is one of those words poets need to keep nearby. Verb and/or noun, with multiple meanings in both parts of speech. A single, brisk syllable. Open to rhyming. A doorway to numerous subjects.

"Stick a feather in your cap, and call it macaroni." Now, that is a folk-song line that continues to perplex me. "No, thank you, I don't have a cap, and if I did, I wouldn't want to stick a feather in it, and even if I stuck a feather in a cap, I wouldn't call the feather or the cap macaroni. What you're asking is excessive. Good day to you, sir."

And looping back to the semi-original topic, let me say that I am surprised (but shouldn't be) how many persons do NOT know "how to drive a stick." My son knows how to drive a car with a stick shift, and he also earned his Ph.D. in stick-driving by practicing on a 1969 Ford F-100 pickup, with none of this "syncro-mesh" nonsense, and no power steering--so while you're madly trying to get the thing in gear, you're also wrestling with the wheel.

Stick.