Friday, November 18, 2011
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
What Have You Done For Me, Lately?
*
*
*
What Have You Done for Me, Lately?
What have you done for me, Lately?
I don't even understand your name--
"Lately" can mean tardy or recent,
and hell, "late" can even mean dead.
"My late uncle" doesn't mean, "Oh,
I wonder what's keeping my uncle!"
Death's keeping him. I'm compulsively
early in a world that slops past appointments
like bilge. The others arrive late--but not
lately. Good God, Lately, you're a rejected
adverb! You're a part of speech wandering
in a desert. What have you done for me
except make me rush, glance at my watch,
worry when a friend doesn't show?
Lately, you are time's freelancer, a runner
for bookies, the line of people that doesn't
move. I'd like to do something for you,
Lately. For really I would.
*
*
What Have You Done for Me, Lately?
What have you done for me, Lately?
I don't even understand your name--
"Lately" can mean tardy or recent,
and hell, "late" can even mean dead.
"My late uncle" doesn't mean, "Oh,
I wonder what's keeping my uncle!"
Death's keeping him. I'm compulsively
early in a world that slops past appointments
like bilge. The others arrive late--but not
lately. Good God, Lately, you're a rejected
adverb! You're a part of speech wandering
in a desert. What have you done for me
except make me rush, glance at my watch,
worry when a friend doesn't show?
Lately, you are time's freelancer, a runner
for bookies, the line of people that doesn't
move. I'd like to do something for you,
Lately. For really I would.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Monday, November 14, 2011
One By Samuel Daniel
Reposting a link to a poem by Samuel Daniel, a lesser known but very fine Renaissance poet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucfxFFhojjU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucfxFFhojjU&feature=related
Sunday, November 13, 2011
and the soup
*
*
*
and the soup
and I'm glad for soup,
for hot soup on bitter days
and I'm happy there is
black hair, white hair, brown
and red hair, gold hair;
and for breath--so easy
to forget I owe everything
to it, to breath, to . . .
. . . to the Circumstances
(one way to say it) I am
grateful, for I am here,
I was here, will have been
here. . . and I'm glad for light,
day and sky and bulb,
light in dreams;
and glad for darkness--
black silhouettes of pines
against blackness and stars,
holy, holy . . .and the soup.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
*
*
and the soup
and I'm glad for soup,
for hot soup on bitter days
and I'm happy there is
black hair, white hair, brown
and red hair, gold hair;
and for breath--so easy
to forget I owe everything
to it, to breath, to . . .
. . . to the Circumstances
(one way to say it) I am
grateful, for I am here,
I was here, will have been
here. . . and I'm glad for light,
day and sky and bulb,
light in dreams;
and glad for darkness--
black silhouettes of pines
against blackness and stars,
holy, holy . . .and the soup.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Friday, November 11, 2011
Lime Cove
*
*
*
Lime Cove
Charlotte sings a lullaby
to her bedroom, making sure
it's slow asleep before she
quicks herself away. Charlotte
and the night are in a kind
of clanky love. She says
to her doorbell, "Please come
in," and washes from it all
those oily index-finger prints.
Solicitations, she thinks, take up
so much of our lives. Asking,
answering. "God," she asks,
"help me to find a place in pause,
a site, a situation, for it seems
I am defeated by the business
of each day." Charlotte knows
she hasn't earned or isn't due
a special treatment. She also
knows she isn't out of line
in asking for some cease of
time, a cove carved out of
lime, where a pod of echoes
soaks itself in brine.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
*
*
Lime Cove
Charlotte sings a lullaby
to her bedroom, making sure
it's slow asleep before she
quicks herself away. Charlotte
and the night are in a kind
of clanky love. She says
to her doorbell, "Please come
in," and washes from it all
those oily index-finger prints.
Solicitations, she thinks, take up
so much of our lives. Asking,
answering. "God," she asks,
"help me to find a place in pause,
a site, a situation, for it seems
I am defeated by the business
of each day." Charlotte knows
she hasn't earned or isn't due
a special treatment. She also
knows she isn't out of line
in asking for some cease of
time, a cove carved out of
lime, where a pod of echoes
soaks itself in brine.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
How To Be A Sonnet
Re-posting one from a few years ago:
How To Be A Sonnet
You have to utter what you have to say
Iambically, and then you must transmit
Whatever poet using you that day
Decides that she or he desires to get
Across compressedly and cleverly.
However well you carry out this task,
Please know, my dear, that you'll fail utterly.
For every sonnet-sampler now will ask,
"How can this upstart thing even presume
To carve its iambs anywhere as well
As Shakespeare's little monuments that loom--
Or all the sonnets that still help to sell
Anthologies to students who view verse
As if it were a body in a hearse?"
Copyright 2007 Hans Ostrom
How To Be A Sonnet
You have to utter what you have to say
Iambically, and then you must transmit
Whatever poet using you that day
Decides that she or he desires to get
Across compressedly and cleverly.
However well you carry out this task,
Please know, my dear, that you'll fail utterly.
For every sonnet-sampler now will ask,
"How can this upstart thing even presume
To carve its iambs anywhere as well
As Shakespeare's little monuments that loom--
Or all the sonnets that still help to sell
Anthologies to students who view verse
As if it were a body in a hearse?"
Copyright 2007 Hans Ostrom
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)