A Few Words From Life

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A Few Words From Life

"I didn't make you any promises,"
said Life to the man. "You made them
and bounced them off a mirror you
named Life. You made those promises
yourself like a magician who forgets
his tricks are tricks." "Oh, I don't know,"
the man replied, "some of those illusions
I couldn't possibly have invented."


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Traveling Cat

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Traveling Cat

He was a traveling cat. He raced
and slunk, padded and trotted, sleek
and balanced, tendons full of
saved up speed. He moved silently
except for a hiss or a yowl now
and then, or a tipped over can:
never his fault. Yes, he was a

traveling cat, moving from this to
that, from at to at, detecting
motion, smooth as lotion, reading
the air, decoding sounds sent
from everywhere. Itinerant and

cool, self-possessed and freely
feline--leonine, nined up with lives,
cagey but uncaged, guileless and wise
was the traveling cat.

Move-In Weekend For Freshmen

I'm on campus for a bit of official business, and the campus is populated chiefly people who look about 18 years old and people who look roughly 53 years old. The latter group looks a little worse for wear; members of the former group occasionally look like they can't wait for members of the latter group to leave, and to leave them to their first week of college. Alas, this is move-in weekend for first-year students at our particular venue of higher education.

When I moved into the dormitory at the college I first attended, the scheme was pretty simple. My parents dropped me off with 1 or 2 suitcases and a large trunk. I think they got out of the truck to help remove the luggage out, but then they said goodbye and drove away. I dragged the luggage into the dorm, found room and room-mate, and we had lift-off. There was no orientation program.

I was just trying to recall what the first legitimate or "serious" poem was that I wrote in college. I think it may have been one called "John Muir's Ghost," a short poem that dutifully followed through on the title and depicted Muir's ghost having a great time roaming freely in the Sierra Nevada. I think the first line was "John Muir's ghost gallops, glides, and slips." I still like the play of language in that line--the g's and p's and s's.

No sign of John Muir's ghost on move-in day, so I assume the ghost is still down in California.

Phylis McGinley on Robin Hood

I was browsing through a favorite anthology, The Oxford Book of Satirical Verse, edited by Geoffrey Grigson. I think I purchased it not long after it was published in hardback (1980) because I was beginning to work on a dissertation about satirical poetry written by British poets in the "Romantic" (earlier 19th century) period.

Here is one of the shortest poems in the book:

Speaking of Television: Robin Hood

by Phyllis McGinley

Zounds, gramercy, and rootity-toot!
Here comes the man in the green flannel suit.

Like a wee pin, the poem lets the air out of a TV version of Robin Hood, or perhaps out of the TV appearance of Errol Flynn's famous cinematic rendition. I'm inclined to apply the poem to Kevin Costner's extremely puzzling portrayal of RH.

But mainly I thought . . . what a great idea for a series of poems--two-line rhyming epigrams about things on TV, or on the Internet. So I'll toss the idea out there for an poets who want to have some fun with it, and yes, I understand that your slang may not include Zounds, gramercy, or rootity-toot.

International Anthology of Poetry

The blogger Poefrika has just logged a nice post on Fire in the Soul: 100 Poems for Human Rights, published by New Internationalist, with the support of Amnesty International. Poefrika also mentions two Zimbabwean poets whose work is included in the book.

Here is a link to the site and the post:

http://poefrika.blogspot.com/

August Afternoon

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August Afternoon

A breeze off Puget Sound curls
around a corner of the abode,
rushes through a line of herbal
foliage--three kinds of mint,
a stout rosemary plant, parsley,
chives, oregano, thyme, and
leathery-leafed sage. The breeze
organizes an aromatic syndicate,
which bargains collectively with
a gardener's sense of smell
on an August afternoon.


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Stephen Biko

Blogger "Morphological Confetti" has posted a thoughtful remembrance of Stephen Biko, South African activist:

http://civileyes.blogspot.com/2009/08/on-august-18-1977-stephen-biko-one-of.html

Horizon

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Horizon

No one can measure the distance to
the horizon, only the distance from it.

The horizon doesn't exist, but it must.

One must determine the place between
high tide and low tide, then measure up

to the point from which one wants to

envisage the horizon, which is a fiction
resting on a line by the angle above sea-

level from which one overlooks ocean. Okay?

There is no fixed point to the horizon,
or to measurement, or to looking at the sea,

or even to living next to the ocean, a notion.

There is a sea, a coast, two tides, a triangle
tied to a plane on a sphere. Let's grant these,

please. There is no horizon, except insofar,
so far, as something seems to end out there

a certain uncertain distance from here. There

is no distance like show-distance to the horizon
because if one travels it, the distance, then

the horizon will have moved away. Nonetheless,

one is free to measure by the sea. They can't
take that away from thee. One is free to look

and to say, "Look, there's the horizon." Okay?

Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Strong Views

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Strong Views

On the narrow road rising steeply
to Sierra City's cemetery, a wry
sign notes, "Not A Through Street."
We set the headstone of a dead aunt
next to a rock wall her brother
built. We place beneath the concrete

a full bottle of whiskey, a
horseshoe, a deer antler, and
a piece of rose quartz. Otherwise,
the aunt's not represented here
except in our memories. Her
ashes travel up by an alpine
lake somewhere. The family's
idiosyncratic, you might say,

and tardy, even haphazard, with
its burial rituals. In fact, there
are no rituals, no funerals or
formalities. People get together
eventually, share some laughs
and glum grief, eat, and drink.

A panting black dog lies
in the truck watching us lay
the headstone. Later, the aunt's
remaining brothers will visit
the stone in the shade, have
a look, say a total of, oh,
seven words, maybe. For now,

we kid around in the cemetery,
get the job done, nobody's
business but our own. Goodbye
to Aunt Nevada. The smooth blue
stone, saved from an arastra,
gives the pertinent dates, her
other last name, and a nickname--
then mentions, "Strong Views."


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Audible Is Laudable

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Audible Is Laudable

A crisper whisper would have been
audible to you. You wouldn't have
said, "What?" The whisperer wouldn't
have then withdrawn, mortified. You
wouldn't have made all those bad
guesses: Did she say, "Wild swans
used to be white, of course" or
"Michael wants you to rewrite
the reports"? or something else
entirely? Why had she desired
to whisper? You can't ask her. She
has moved away from you to another
part of the room, is conversing
garrulously. Others look at you.
Again you say, "What?" but for
another purpose. You say it clearly.
They hear you. They say nothing.


Copyright 2009

Ford F-100 Coda

A correspondent from California who is familiar with the history of a particular Ford F-100 pickup (see previous post) observes the following:

"It should also be noted that for most of its life the F-100 rarely exceeded 40 mph so it's carbon production was very low when compared to the Ford Expedition behemoths that are rolling down the freeways of America every day at 75 or 80 mph."

Speed emits. I've never written that particular two-word sentence before; wow, that felt pretty good.

Cap and Trade: Bring It On!

Apparently one proposal for reducing carbon emissions is known as "cap and trade," a concept that, I gather, involves charging companies (for example) for emitting carbon but allows companies to trade "units" of carbon they have been allotted.

Another proposal, already enacted, involves giving people $4500 for so-called clunker automobiles if they spend the $4500 on a car that emits less carbon.

These policies converge directly on my 1969 Ford F-100 pickup (step-side style, short bed).

I'm ready.

My secret weapon is the odometer, which I, which no one, has turned back, in case you're wondering. The total miles on the odometer is now 52,480. Divide that number by 40 (years), and you get the resulting miles driven per year and carbon emitted per year. Not many miles, not much carbon.

My late father drove the pickup until 1997, so almost all the credit for low carbon emissions and minimalist driving must go to him. Most of the miles he put on the truck involved going to and from work as a carpenter and stone mason; going "to town" to pick up the mail and some groceries; going hunting, which essentially involved driving straight up into the mountains (much elevation, few miles); and going in search of gold.

However, at the insistence of the Ford F-100, I have maintained the minimalist philosophy. If you would emit less carbon, suggests the Ford, drive less. I know: it is a complex theory.

To echo lines from Treasure of the Sierra Madre, I don't need no stinking $4500 dollars for my "clunker" (a term the Ford and I find offensive, incidentally), and bring the cap-and-trade on, baby. I will amass units of carbon that I will sell to, well, I don't know to whom--Du Pont? California? NASCAR?

When I do occasionally drive the Ford into my favorite working-class shopping area in Tacoma, the Ford gets a lot of approving glances--from persons of all generations and from both genders, believe it or not. The truck is certifiably funky. It is an automotive poem.

Motorcycles, 2:10 a.m.

Motorcycles, 2:10 a.m.

At 2:10 a.m., it is too hot to sleep. An open
window reports the sound of motorcycles as they
rage away from saloons' parking lots at closing-
time and down a long dark hill out there. The
thought of a drunk riding an unmuffled engine

home and startling people all along the route
salts an insomniac's grim sense of humor. A
soused, solitary biker riding is a raucous
creature, a sad Nietzsche in bluejeans, the
gas-tank shaped like a stylized tear-drop,

the woozy rebel's jacket hand-sewn by a
tolerant, bemused aunt whose husband, an
insurance salesman and the step-father
of the lad, drives one of those silent
hybrid cars and must arise at 6:30 a.m.


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom