Seattle Signs

In Seattle yesterday I was amused and/or perplexed by several commercial signs.

 One read, "Organic To Go."  This one intrigued me because an adjective is offered as something one may take "to go," but where is the noun?  Organic what?  Maybe it's just the concept, "Organic."  "What size would you like on that concept, sir?"  "Uh, make that a medium."

Another sign read, "Coming Soon: Sullivan's Steakhouse."  I felt like responding, "Is this really necessary?"  I have nothing against steakhouses or Sullivan's Steakhouse (which I do not know), but there just seem to be so many steakhouses.   Also, I was wondering about the word, "steakhouse."  We don't really have fish-houses or salad-houses.  A chickenhouse would make us think of a coop, probably.  But steaks are served in a house.  "Coming soon: Ed's Steak-Garage."

Let's see--and then there was "Floral Masters," which sounds like an academic degree.  Or like a strange combination of flowers and martial arts.   Or maybe it brings to mind people who have mastery over flowers--bossing them around. "Yo, rose, a little brighter on the color, dude!"

Then in Starbucks there was a written-in-chalk sign for cups of coffee made individually, and one of them was "New Guinea Peaberry"--for $3.85 a cup.  Wow.  And is the beverage made from roasted coffee berries (beans) or from peaberries, in which case one would be drinking a cup of pea, which is not appealing.  But--$3.85?  For one cup?  I mean--really?

Housman: Politically Conservative

On another blog, I just posted something about A.E. Housman's being politically conservative, and I quote a humorous paragraph from an article on Housman:

Housman/conservative

And apparently Housman's Tories will be back in power soon in England, at least according to an article I read in the Economist this weekend.

Nikki Giovanni to Donate Copyrights to Virginia Tech

Thanks to fellow blogger and poet, Poefrika, I've learned that writer and professor Nikki Giovanni will bequeath copyrights to her work to Virginia Tech University, where she teaches.  Here's a link:

Poefrika/Giovanni


Bicycles: Love Poems, by Nikki Giovanni

A Fine Poem About Auden

Below is a link to a fine poem about W.H. Auden, one of my favorite poets; it was written by Australian poet Peter Nicholson, who also posts on the blog 3 Quarks Daily.

on Auden

This Thin Mist

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This Thin Mist


This thin mist, less than rain,
more than fog, enchants evening.
It turns trees into impressioned,
faded, murky shapes. It blesses
gardens, grasses, weeds, and trees.
Makes streets and metal glisten.
This thin mist is weather whispering
in between storms. It's just water,
sure, but it feels like reconciliation.


Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

New Johnny Cash Video

A correspondent from California alerted me to the new Johnny Cash video (produced by Rick Rubin and John Carter Cash), based on one of Cash's last recordings, "Ain't No Grave Can Hold Me."

Cash Video


The Man Comes Around: The Spiritual Journey of Johnny Cash

In Place of Grandparents

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In Place of Grandparents


Through circumstances--an efficient, two-word
explanation--I had grandparents but knew none
of them. Two were dead before I lived; the
two living were near enough but not to be
encountered.  Like most children, I probably
could have benefited from that mild antidote
to parents--the grandparent.  In place of it,

I got some stories--what the dead ones had
been like, what filial fractures had made
the lives ones off-limits.  Narratives became
my grandparents: unusual, sure; not horrible.

I came to know of treacheries and betrayals,
primal scenes, the weather of resentment.
The stories of other people become key parts
of our own lives. That sounds something like
a grandparent might say.


Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

Malthus Called

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Malthus Called


Malthus called today to say,
"I told you so."  Too much us,
not enough planet.  It doesn't
tale an algorithm to figure that.

I do such statistically insignificant
things as plant trees and direct
carbon dioxide their way. "This
way to the trees," I say to air.

I sealed the abode tightly
and now use those light-bulbs that
just sip electricity. None of this
will help, according to the message

left by Malthus. Theoretical doom
is no reason to give up. I called
Malthus back to tell him this, but
he was gone, back to the past.

Cardinal Newman answered
from the past instead. He asked,
"Have you tried prayer?" "Yes," I
said, "and it looks like a tree."

Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

An Essay on the Principle of Population

Strange Time

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Strange Time


When I arrived at that place, words
and actions let me know I wasn't quite
what they wanted, had expected. Yes,
I'd been invited: a technicality.  I spent

some time at the party's edge. I was
following a line of exclusionary logic:
If unwanted, behave peripherally
and keep close watch on arbiters.

Later I moved toward the center,
began to perform so as to prove
they should indeed desire my presence.
You know how that sort of thing

goes. I went from ignored to resented.
Outside finally in night air alone, I told
another departing guest, "I had a
strange time in there. I'm glad I'm out."

"You're not alone," she said to
me, adding, "and by that of
course I mean you are alone.
Good night."  "Good night," I said.


Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

Sounds Today

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Sounds Today


On the street, a man bounces a basketball.
The sound's not different from that of chopping
wood. It stops when he shoots the ball at a
hoop. The sound from this is something
like a dull bell in fog.  The man shouts--
he sounds like a seal. A car goes by

in a slow rush, air displaced largely.
The car's sound-system thumps--that
speakered pulse all of us are used to now.
The city's sounds fill in an audio backdrop.
That wood-chopping, basket-ball-on-
pavement sound continues. The man
is frenzied because the sun's out and

Winter's been so long this year. He's
furiously glad, pounds that gray pavement
with his orange, hand-held planet.


Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

Only Dreaming

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Only Dreaming


In this wet city under gray today,
you'll sense how hard and wearily
so many people work. Could be
you'll grieve for grinding toil
demanded and surrendered. Or
maybe you won't have time to
feel much because you're working.

Later you'll get across the city
somehow as gray becomes night.
Inside where you live, you'll note
again how much you and your clothes
smell of the work you do. Now other
tasks await: to cook, to listen,
to worry, to count, to try to rest.
Only dreaming will seem effortless,
but that's dreaming, which is nothing.


Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

Salvage Yard

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Salvage Yard

When I pass a salvage yard, everything
in it's dear  because it's something
crumpled, because it used to be
something designed and functional. Each
piece took some work to make and worked
for a while.  The yard as a whole presents
gnarled pyramids of contorted metal,
smeared rust, and broken tonnage.

I couldn't operate a salvage yard
because I'd want to keep the junk.
The yard's a tomb without a pharaoh,
an installation without a gallery. It's
a steel opera, a metal consequence,
a there. Flattened Cadillacs, pretzeled
I-beams, broken bridges, arrested
scrap: reusable, yes, bound for
a furnace hell. And beautiful--heaped
indiscriminately in mud.

Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

Salvage Yard Treasures of America

Two Poems By President Obama

Here is a link to two poems written by President Obama and published in 1981 in the Occidental College literary magainze:


Poems by Obama

The first one, about a father, reminds me a bit of Theodore Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz."