Sunday, April 3, 2011
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Friday, April 1, 2011
My White Body
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My White Body
My white body has brought me ease
in this USA society that's marked black
and brown bodies, that marks them still.
My body white and masculine has functioned
as a passport, yes it has. Has often let me
be as invisible or as noticed as I prefer.
Has allowed me to prefer. I hear the voices
of contrarians: Have my white body and I
been excluded, ignored, worked hard, and
maybe even hated? Oh, sure. But not so
as to make my white body's experience
and me equivalent to that of those marked
by this USA society. I've been reading
The Slave Ship: A Human History by
Marcus Rediker, 2008. You know, you
think you know, but you don't know--
that is why history is written, read.
Admit it. Admit you have a white body
according to the culture's rules, I told
myself. And let's not whitewash the issue.
This isn't Tom Sawyer's fence.
What's an admission worth? Not much.
It's a move, a mental shift. What must ensue
after the admission must be more productive
than just the admission. Otherwise the move
becomes just more hoo-hah from a mind inside
a white body. My white body has brought me ease.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
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My White Body
My white body has brought me ease
in this USA society that's marked black
and brown bodies, that marks them still.
My body white and masculine has functioned
as a passport, yes it has. Has often let me
be as invisible or as noticed as I prefer.
Has allowed me to prefer. I hear the voices
of contrarians: Have my white body and I
been excluded, ignored, worked hard, and
maybe even hated? Oh, sure. But not so
as to make my white body's experience
and me equivalent to that of those marked
by this USA society. I've been reading
The Slave Ship: A Human History by
Marcus Rediker, 2008. You know, you
think you know, but you don't know--
that is why history is written, read.
Admit it. Admit you have a white body
according to the culture's rules, I told
myself. And let's not whitewash the issue.
This isn't Tom Sawyer's fence.
What's an admission worth? Not much.
It's a move, a mental shift. What must ensue
after the admission must be more productive
than just the admission. Otherwise the move
becomes just more hoo-hah from a mind inside
a white body. My white body has brought me ease.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
My Father Does Disapprobation
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My Father Does Disapprobation
Jesus Christ Almighty! my father used to say,
not speaking to, of, or for Jesus but to one or more
of his three sons, who had done something maybe
not even wrong but just imperfectly. He could be
thunderous in his disapprobation, which is a word
I never heard him say. He was the Jehovah
of our family--and an atheist: no competition.
Jesus Christ Almighty HIT the sonofabitch!!
he'd shout--concerning a sledge-hammer,
wielded by one of us, at a wooden stake.
A mere stake being driven into the mere ground!
Disproportionate furor! Magnificent, in its own
way, and in its own way Judeo-Christian: Old School.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
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My Father Does Disapprobation
Jesus Christ Almighty! my father used to say,
not speaking to, of, or for Jesus but to one or more
of his three sons, who had done something maybe
not even wrong but just imperfectly. He could be
thunderous in his disapprobation, which is a word
I never heard him say. He was the Jehovah
of our family--and an atheist: no competition.
Jesus Christ Almighty HIT the sonofabitch!!
he'd shout--concerning a sledge-hammer,
wielded by one of us, at a wooden stake.
A mere stake being driven into the mere ground!
Disproportionate furor! Magnificent, in its own
way, and in its own way Judeo-Christian: Old School.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
This Is Your Uncle Vinton
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This Is Your Uncle Vinton
This is your Uncle Vinton calling:
You say you don't have an Uncle
Vinton, and you close the call.
Actually you do have an Uncle
Vinton. He's a secret, me. I was
going to mention a few other things
you may not know. But that's all right.
You'll be fine not knowing them, me.
You may recall in quiet moments
the calm assurance of my voice when
I said, This is your Uncle Vinton calling.
Our disconnection will be our only connection.
--Unless of course you call me some night
and say This is your niece, Verona, calling,
and I say, "I don't have a niece named Verona."
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
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This Is Your Uncle Vinton
This is your Uncle Vinton calling:
You say you don't have an Uncle
Vinton, and you close the call.
Actually you do have an Uncle
Vinton. He's a secret, me. I was
going to mention a few other things
you may not know. But that's all right.
You'll be fine not knowing them, me.
You may recall in quiet moments
the calm assurance of my voice when
I said, This is your Uncle Vinton calling.
Our disconnection will be our only connection.
--Unless of course you call me some night
and say This is your niece, Verona, calling,
and I say, "I don't have a niece named Verona."
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Gray Boulder
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I Say That Gray Boulder
I say that gray boulder will always be
there, knowing it will be gone--but long
after I am no longer. I say it because
I need at least a stone to stay where
it was, where it is in my mind,
which needs rock to be more
than memory. Mind wearies of its
memories, its common stock. That
gray boulder's under cedars.
I sat on it, age six, and experienced
the expansive fluidity of sight, thought,
light, impulse, and sensation all children
know but don't know they will lose.
I say "that gray boulder," and I know.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
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I Say That Gray Boulder
I say that gray boulder will always be
there, knowing it will be gone--but long
after I am no longer. I say it because
I need at least a stone to stay where
it was, where it is in my mind,
which needs rock to be more
than memory. Mind wearies of its
memories, its common stock. That
gray boulder's under cedars.
I sat on it, age six, and experienced
the expansive fluidity of sight, thought,
light, impulse, and sensation all children
know but don't know they will lose.
I say "that gray boulder," and I know.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
Rush Hour Poem
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Rush, Our
Convenience, steel, and efficiency
in automobilian form get reduced
to viscous troughs of traffic, giving
us time to work on futility, self-loathing,
and heart-attacks. Someone named it
the Rush Hour. It's when rushing ceases,
and it lasts several hours; otherwise,
it's a great name. The oligarchs prefer
that we travel this way, stopped
in vehicles built to go, sitting in a
holding-cell atop rubber tires and
with payments due. It's a great system.
It really is. And so sometimes we
lean on the horn or shout at the
windshield, our impotent spit
flying, to express sad rage or
to misbehave farcically.
Copyright 2011
{
[
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Rush, Our
Convenience, steel, and efficiency
in automobilian form get reduced
to viscous troughs of traffic, giving
us time to work on futility, self-loathing,
and heart-attacks. Someone named it
the Rush Hour. It's when rushing ceases,
and it lasts several hours; otherwise,
it's a great name. The oligarchs prefer
that we travel this way, stopped
in vehicles built to go, sitting in a
holding-cell atop rubber tires and
with payments due. It's a great system.
It really is. And so sometimes we
lean on the horn or shout at the
windshield, our impotent spit
flying, to express sad rage or
to misbehave farcically.
Copyright 2011
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