More Haiku of Basho, translated by Lucien Stryk

Haiku of Basho, translated by Lucien Stryk

"I Never See the Red Rose Crown the Year," by John Masefield

"oh, yes," by Charles Bukowski

I hear a rumbling - music + Margaret Walker poem

"The Name of It is 'Autumn,'" by Emily Dickinson

What Have You Done For Me, Lately?

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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.

"Fox and You," by Hans Ostrom

"Sometimes," by Herman Hesse

"Little Lyric (Of Great Importance)"

"Give Us Our Peace," by Langston Hughes

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

and the soup

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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