"Storm Ending," by Jean Toomer

"Daybreak in Alabama," by Langston Hughes

"For A Lady I Know," by Countee Cullen

"Autumn," by Emily Dickinson

All Right, Now

Having successfully eluded
fame, he took
a long nap
and awoke refreshed.



hans ostrom 2013

The U.S. Congress, Observed

Have you been watching
these little legislative haters,
these law-mockers and logic-blockers
sent to the Hill (our Golgotha)
with cash stuffed up their pipes?

They've done no reading in history,
economics, philosophy, or science.
Their self-interest is artless, their
corruption as bald as a brass door knob.

It's a little like watching a person
with lousy reflexes drive a stock car
at Darlington or Daytona,
or some drunk college lad
pick a fight with a seasoned
body-guard. It can't end
well. Yes, of course,

after the wreckage, it will be we
who'll have to clean up
as best we can. Politics
now seems to have an endless
supply of punks, and
not the musical kind.


hans ostrom 2013

Fall's Always Good for a Laugh

A large, allegedly evolved primate,

he passed through an exterior door

of his abode, intending to gather

a newspaper on the stoop (this

was in the last days of print-culture),

and he was caught in a spider’s web.

Webbing on his face, he looked

at the fat brown spider as it danced

like a portly Vaudevillian on its

filament, and he laughed.


hans ostrom 2013

Positionality

I've misplaced my subject-position. It happens.
According to the post-modernist rulebook, which
is only virtual, my default positionality is therefore
one of befuddlement, which could be a ruse, except
a ruse seems so pre-modern, even atavistic. One
thing's certain: I'm not a mystic. Positionality
is such a tricky business. If you write or speak

the word, "positionality," then you've pretty much
positioned yourself into a pretentious corner, and
the commonly insensitive Anglo-Saxon ax will fall
on your multi-syllabic Deluxe Latinate Impressor,
which comes with its two-speed abstractionator.

Cut to: a meadow. My subject-position transport-
system, a hot-air balloon, lies sideways and un-
inflated, mere fabric amidst flax-stubble. This
is Not A Problem. This is Laugh Out Loud.


[re-posted from 2008]

hans ostrom 2013

Quit While You're Ahead

Many times in his life he had heard
the advice, "Know when to quit while
you're ahead." Well, hell, he thought
at last, I never get ahead. Sometimes
I catch up, but that's about it. Otherwise
I'm always behind. So I think I need
to learn to know when to quit
while I'm behind.



hans ostrom

Of Them and Of Hiram

While the others
majored in pre-law,
Hiram majored in post-law.

While they practiced
their interviewing skills,
he fell in love with women--

in particular and as a
concept. While the others
began good careers,

Hiram drove on dirt roads,
found some employment,
and wrote odd poetry.

While they took over a
political Party and insisted
on hating Black people,

Hiram read Black authors,
listened to blues, soul,
and funk, and was politically

powerless. They sold their
souls. He rented his out, but
never for very long.

They dined on the entrails
of the poor. He grew
his own vegetables.




hans ostrom 2013

Justice

justice
just ice
just is
in just
in jest
ingest
indigest
indigestion
indigest onion
in dig est
in dig o
o blue o blue o

injustice
in jester
no justice
no jest is
no just is

no peace
know peace
know piece
no peace
no peas
no pleas

no, pleas
no place
no justice no place
just please
just pleas
just peace
just us
justice



hans ostrom 2013

Race/Ism

Race is mmmm.
Racism is.
Racist.
Racyst.
Resist.
Re: racism:

White, White, White
Why it, Why it, Why it
Wyatt burp

Wee, Wee, Wee
Wit, Wit, Wit
Nit, Nit, Nit
Not, Not, Not
Knot, Knot, Knot
Know, Know, Know

No, no, no, no, no
no racism no
more.


hans ostrom 2013

The GOP

What used to be Eisenhower's Party
is now a toxic,
radioactive brew
of John Birch, Joseph McCarthy,
Orville Faubus, Jessie Helms,
the enfeebled Ronald Reagan,
Birth of a Nation,
the Bush Crime family,
Ayn Rand (speed freak),
and the KKK. Lord?
Help us.


hans ostrom 2013