T.S. Eliot's birthday today.
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
The Organoids
I enjoy how science hunts down philosophy
like a big cat on a plain:
the clever bastards now make
organoids--
yes, that's right, brains
in vats, the old
thought-experiment.
Yes, of course, maybe
it's a case of brains in vats
imagining
they're making brains in vats;
and of
other brains in vats imagining
they're reading and writing
about same. Alas, not likely.
Occam's Razor slices a leak
in vats of that sort.
I do hope there is a neo-funk-
rock-digital-punk-post-sexual
band out there now named
"The Organoids." That,
by the way, is something my
brain thought, some meager
morsel a big cat might snack on.
hans ostrom 2013
like a big cat on a plain:
the clever bastards now make
organoids--
yes, that's right, brains
in vats, the old
thought-experiment.
Yes, of course, maybe
it's a case of brains in vats
imagining
they're making brains in vats;
and of
other brains in vats imagining
they're reading and writing
about same. Alas, not likely.
Occam's Razor slices a leak
in vats of that sort.
I do hope there is a neo-funk-
rock-digital-punk-post-sexual
band out there now named
"The Organoids." That,
by the way, is something my
brain thought, some meager
morsel a big cat might snack on.
hans ostrom 2013
Monday, September 23, 2013
In the Chambers of the Sounds
Hearing the off-off-beat rhythms,
sonic schisms. Hear-
ing the syncopations out of
diasporic nations: ah, the
daughters sweat when they dance
and they laugh into lances of light. Ah,
the world, too much, in its trembling
under the weight and the hate
of its machineries: beat-
en down. One mind's
a mental gleanery, a picking up
of bits from a mowed-down
psychic scenery. Hear-
ing sounds made of sounds recorded
sounds effected now, an overlooping
digi-lapping mix-re-mixification,
queen and princess and
good king syntheslaus
at the feast of even beatsintune.
Hearing
the on beat, off-again
ch- ch- ch-echoing
in the chambered
arterials,
air-displaced materials,
endless musi-chilled imp-
rovisations,
hearing.
hans ostrom 2013
sonic schisms. Hear-
ing the syncopations out of
diasporic nations: ah, the
daughters sweat when they dance
and they laugh into lances of light. Ah,
the world, too much, in its trembling
under the weight and the hate
of its machineries: beat-
en down. One mind's
a mental gleanery, a picking up
of bits from a mowed-down
psychic scenery. Hear-
ing sounds made of sounds recorded
sounds effected now, an overlooping
digi-lapping mix-re-mixification,
queen and princess and
good king syntheslaus
at the feast of even beatsintune.
Hearing
the on beat, off-again
ch- ch- ch-echoing
in the chambered
arterials,
air-displaced materials,
endless musi-chilled imp-
rovisations,
hearing.
hans ostrom 2013
Friday, September 20, 2013
Animal Authors
Ernest Hummingbird
Emily Cricketson
J.D. Salamander
Charles Chickens
Jane Mothsten
Leo Toadstoy
Herman Moleville
William Bobcat Williams
Otter Conan Doyle
Flea S. Eliot
Percy Fish Shelley
William Rattler Yeats
William Snakespeare
Margaret Catwood
Allen Ginsbug
Albert Camoose
Franz Calfka
Charles Bucrowski
hans ostrom 2013
Emily Cricketson
J.D. Salamander
Charles Chickens
Jane Mothsten
Leo Toadstoy
Herman Moleville
William Bobcat Williams
Otter Conan Doyle
Flea S. Eliot
Percy Fish Shelley
William Rattler Yeats
William Snakespeare
Margaret Catwood
Allen Ginsbug
Albert Camoose
Franz Calfka
Charles Bucrowski
hans ostrom 2013
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
The Sheriff Has Absconded
You touch the moon on water,
a century collapses into a train
& the engine's light shines
on tracks, which ladder up
from night into a blue dawn
buttered. And now unfixed
factories march across
a plain to kidnap fugitive
workers. You're at red
rim-rock's edge, watching
all of this--you,
the emperor of images,
brewer of creosote beer,
melter of topaz, escaped
sheriff.
hans ostrom 2013
a century collapses into a train
& the engine's light shines
on tracks, which ladder up
from night into a blue dawn
buttered. And now unfixed
factories march across
a plain to kidnap fugitive
workers. You're at red
rim-rock's edge, watching
all of this--you,
the emperor of images,
brewer of creosote beer,
melter of topaz, escaped
sheriff.
hans ostrom 2013
Monday, September 16, 2013
All Are All Alone
All are all alone
in the cave of the cranium.
Data and, via language, guests
may enter. Only the one
lives there though, bent over
a fire, cool-napping or
listening to underground streams
and echoes of screams.
hans ostrom 2013
in the cave of the cranium.
Data and, via language, guests
may enter. Only the one
lives there though, bent over
a fire, cool-napping or
listening to underground streams
and echoes of screams.
hans ostrom 2013
Friday, September 13, 2013
Self-Contradiction Blues
Self-Contradiction Blues
"I am an atheist who says his prayers"
--Karl Shapiro, The Bourgeois Poet
He's a hick who got
cosmopolized, a fierce
coward and a timid stalwart.
He's a shrewd fool, a
half-assed genius, and
a morbidly morose optimist.
He adores libraries
and hates the intelligentsia.
He considers himself
a feminist but would stare
at women's naked breasts
until the end of Time,
transfixed, forever adolescent.
He's a lost soul but a found
failure, lazy and obsessive,
driven and languorous.
An over-achiever who
never measured up. A
glad-handing recluse,
quick and dull, exuberant
and plodding, fanciful,
serious, frivolous. He's
nothing but exists.
hans ostrom 2013
"I am an atheist who says his prayers"
--Karl Shapiro, The Bourgeois Poet
He's a hick who got
cosmopolized, a fierce
coward and a timid stalwart.
He's a shrewd fool, a
half-assed genius, and
a morbidly morose optimist.
He adores libraries
and hates the intelligentsia.
He considers himself
a feminist but would stare
at women's naked breasts
until the end of Time,
transfixed, forever adolescent.
He's a lost soul but a found
failure, lazy and obsessive,
driven and languorous.
An over-achiever who
never measured up. A
glad-handing recluse,
quick and dull, exuberant
and plodding, fanciful,
serious, frivolous. He's
nothing but exists.
hans ostrom 2013
Education
She says,
I took the post because
I wanted to teach students
English. Well, all right,
I also needed to earn
a living. In the classroom,
there was boredom. And noise,
endless noise. Most of the students
were distracted by their poverty,
hunger, hormones, phones, talk,
music, and self-loathing.
Outside the classroom,
the corridor was always
crowded, with parents,
administrators, politicians,
consultants, pastors, priests,
rabbis, police, coaches,
pimps, pundits, and God.
The crowd pressed
against the door every day.
In other words, I never
had a chance; worse,
they never had a chance--
the students: you remember
them. She says,
Now I'm a clerk at a
building-supply company.
It's easier, and it pays
the bills, I admit. It
doesn't feel crucial to me,
though, like education
used to feel.
hans ostrom 2013
I took the post because
I wanted to teach students
English. Well, all right,
I also needed to earn
a living. In the classroom,
there was boredom. And noise,
endless noise. Most of the students
were distracted by their poverty,
hunger, hormones, phones, talk,
music, and self-loathing.
Outside the classroom,
the corridor was always
crowded, with parents,
administrators, politicians,
consultants, pastors, priests,
rabbis, police, coaches,
pimps, pundits, and God.
The crowd pressed
against the door every day.
In other words, I never
had a chance; worse,
they never had a chance--
the students: you remember
them. She says,
Now I'm a clerk at a
building-supply company.
It's easier, and it pays
the bills, I admit. It
doesn't feel crucial to me,
though, like education
used to feel.
hans ostrom 2013
Thursday, September 12, 2013
America's Bible Challenge
I shit you not, Brethren,
a cable-network in the U.S.A.
has added a game-show
called "America's Bible Challenge"
to
its
lineup.
The "host" (hear me, people)
is a smart man who became a
stand-up (hear me, people)
comedian with a hick-schtick.
Just before the break,
he says, "Our two teams
are backstage studying
for the Revelation Challenge!
There is twenty thousand dollars
on
the
line!"
You cannot make this shit up,
sisters and brothers. What
the fuck did Jesus Christ
and Moses, for example and
e.g., do to America that
America would make such
an unholy motherfucking
carnival (and I do apologize
for my language) out of
the
Bible?
hans ostrom 2013
a cable-network in the U.S.A.
has added a game-show
called "America's Bible Challenge"
to
its
lineup.
The "host" (hear me, people)
is a smart man who became a
stand-up (hear me, people)
comedian with a hick-schtick.
Just before the break,
he says, "Our two teams
are backstage studying
for the Revelation Challenge!
There is twenty thousand dollars
on
the
line!"
You cannot make this shit up,
sisters and brothers. What
the fuck did Jesus Christ
and Moses, for example and
e.g., do to America that
America would make such
an unholy motherfucking
carnival (and I do apologize
for my language) out of
the
Bible?
hans ostrom 2013
Jesus Reminder
And the Man said,
the name is Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ.
Not Jesus Price
or Jesus Pri$e,
not Jesus Whites
or Jesus Right or
Jesus Lite.
Certainly not
Jesus Might or Jesus
Might-is-Right, and
no not Jesus Kike.
Nor Jesus Flight,
as in your wealth-gospel's
corporate jet. Nor
Jesus Blights. Okay?
Not Jesus Sites,
as in a real estate de-
velopment, or Jesus Sights,
as in the things you
aim your guns with.
And the people, they
got a little quiet.
And then they started
talking, too much, again.
hans ostrom
the name is Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ.
Not Jesus Price
or Jesus Pri$e,
not Jesus Whites
or Jesus Right or
Jesus Lite.
Certainly not
Jesus Might or Jesus
Might-is-Right, and
no not Jesus Kike.
Nor Jesus Flight,
as in your wealth-gospel's
corporate jet. Nor
Jesus Blights. Okay?
Not Jesus Sites,
as in a real estate de-
velopment, or Jesus Sights,
as in the things you
aim your guns with.
And the people, they
got a little quiet.
And then they started
talking, too much, again.
hans ostrom
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