"Not They Who Soar," by Paul Laurence Dunbar

"The Sky Is Low, The Clouds Are Mean," by Emily Dickinson

"Blue Monday," by Langston Hughes

We Are In the Waiting Room

The waiting room waits for us
to move through it. Magazines
collect like silt. We try to collect
each other's thoughts; fail;
return to our own. The waiting room

is quieter than most places
of worship. A door opens rudely.
The caller of names holds
a file, speaks two words brusquely.
One of us gets up. No one
says goodbye or good luck.

Those remaining settle too quickly
back into waiting. We've become
like birds on a roost at dusk.

The world cannot end as long as
there are waiting rooms
because that would be too dramatic.



Hans Ostrom 2013

"Choking It Back"

Today I happened to be
watching a cat choke back
the urge to vomit
a hair-ball just
as I was thinking of
the sheer number of Americans
who, first, consider themselves
White and, second, simply
cannot abide even the thought
of a Black man as President.
I want to say to them,
Vomit up that hatred, first,
and, second, read a
goddamned history book.



hans ostrom 2013

"The Man He Killed," by Thomas Hardy

"Leonardo's 'Mona Lisa,'" by Ernest Dowden

"The Last Invocation," by Walt Whitman

"The Village Atheist," by Edgar Lee Masters

"A Superscription," by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

"To Any Reader," by Robert Louis Stevenson

Gary Snyder's Birthday Today

It is Gary Snyder's birthday today. My favorite books of poems by him is The Back Country. He was born in San Francisco in 1930.

Here is a brief selection from his nonfiction book, The Practice of the Wild:

They Don't Want to Hear From You

Lou, they don’t want
to hear from you. They
don’t want to see
anything you do.

You don’t belong, Lou.
So how long you going
to keep asking to be
considered? Lou,

you were born behind
and never caught up.
Stubborn’s not a talent
they’re looking for.

If they had wanted you,
they would have sent
for you by now, Lou. They
would have sent for you.


Hans Ostrom