"Fresh Poem For Anyone," by Hans Ostrom

John Prine - Fish and Whistle

"Cedars in Space," by Hans Ostrom

"I Thought It Was Tangiers I Wanted," by Langston Hughes

Letter from Samuel Johnson to Mrs. James Boswell, 1777

"Sexual Orientation," by Hans Ostrom

"Mistakes," by Hans Ostrom

"Four A.M.," performed by Joe B. Vaughan, Jr.

"love is more thicker than forget"

"Alicante," by Jacques Prevert

Time Squall

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Time Squall

A cloud of time came over
and rained minutes. I
watched them come down,
generate rivulets, create
puddles. Wonderful to see.
I went out into it
and stood beside an hour-sized
puddle, observing its
ad hoc intricacies. The cloud
moved on, the downpour
of minutes stopped, and
the sun went to work.


Copyright Hans Ostrom 2010

Repairing

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Repairing


Have you ever been trying
to fix something when you
realize you've made it worse
and pushed it past the point
of reparation? I took a pair

of spectacles to an optometrist's
shop. They looked like a Cubist's
sculpture of a bird--glue-smeared,
bits of tape hanging, sad bandages.

The woman behind the desk said,
"I see you tried to fix them."
She said it warmly, without
irony, like an aunt sipping
a gin-and-tonic who has no
interest in parenting you.

She looked closely at the
stupendous failure of my
project. Her whole young
life, she had already seen
many men pursue the male
dream of fixing it themselves.

"Let's get you a new pair,"
shall we?" she said. When
I signed the form, I couldn't
see. Writing had become like
stabbing the fog with a
pen. I enjoyed it.

I hope Heaven has assistant
angels like the optometrist's
front-desk person--there to
check you in, get you registered
for pre-Judgement events. I
hear one saying, "I see you
tried to fix your life."


Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

Writing in the Dark in Vancouver, Canada

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Writing in the Dark in Vancouver, Canada

the surface of the world,
as sorted by senses,
ripples, stinks, attracts,
abrades, confuses, salts, scorns,
and so off we go.

we live not in the world but
only in its epidermis, our vibrations
and toil adding only infinitesimally
to the shifting product, adding

nothing to underneath. what's
beneath this roiling Heraclitan
surface? Emptiness, chant the
Buddhists--sacred silence.
Particles, sing
the scientists. God, pray
Godly ones. Nothing, say
the confidently righteous--
nothing at all, of course: what
you see is . . . .oh, but

nobody really listens to them
because they're not as interesting
as the others. I mean, what's
less imaginative and more boring
than nihilism? Nothing.


Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom