"Lunar Paraphrase," by Wallace Stevens

"November Sun," by Elizabeth Daryush

"Those Who Will Not Reason," by W.H. Auden

"dog," by Charles Bukowski

Garbanzo Opera

When I was six, garbanzo
beans felt like grainy
mud-pebbles to my mouth.
They tasted like a menacing

nothing. When I picked
them out of a salad
and marched them to the edge
of the plate, a parent's

order became inevitable:
"Finish them." Finishing them,
I gagged. They became
soft bullets of

esophageal assassination.
Now I love the little
bastards. I bathe them
in olive oil, bequeath

unto them garlic and pepper.
I now know their nom de
guerre: chick peas.
People may not

change, but their taste-
buds do, and I would pay
good money to go to
see a garbanzo opera.



hans ostrom 2013

Corporations Keep Rats

Corporations keep rats.
They keep them running.
The rats have some cash,
which they pay
the corporation for stuff
the corporations make.
Run there! Pay here!

The bait is technology.
Hey,rat, run after
the new eye-fone 18.3Z!
Pay cash first! Or
put it on a rat-card!

Imagine if the rats
turned around one day
and said, Rat Master,
we don't want any
more stuff right now.
We like the look
of your throat. That's
what we want. For free.



hans ostrom 2013

"Go By Brooks," by Leonard Cohen

"Worry About Money," by Kathleen Raine

How White Operates, Too Often

Way too often, White
goes out like a boomerang
toward what is right
and fair and just, only
to turn in reactionary air

and curve home, home,
to righteous hate, selective
outrage, a change of "heart,"
smug safety, reunion with
old friends, and other amenities
of the supremacists' field
from which
the boomerang
was launched.

Whether you're Black
or White or something else,
here's the thing: if
you truly "get it,"

then you will know
what "it" is, and
you'll nod at
the tautology
(for sure),

and so,
you know,

no doubt
gratuitously,
I advise:

Beware of the White
radical, the White liberal,
the White conservative, and
it goes without saying
the White unapologetic bigot
spewing hate like a spigot.

Beware of them all. Be
unsurprised if they turn
back, if they curve a return to
"home," if, in fact,
they simply are not able.

For they are simple and White,
terrifyingly simple,
and they live
in a White-rewarding world,
and in most cases,
over the long haul,
they are not able.
They just aren't able.


hans ostrom 2013

Computer As Penis, Penis As Computer

You have unused icons on your penis.
Your penis is at risk: no firewall is turned on.
Your penis will restart in 30 seconds.


Would you like a full or partial scan
of your penis?

Your penis needs updating.
Would you like to upgrade to Penis 3.0?

The program, penis.dic has
encountered an error.

Please restart your penis.

Download the latest version of penis.dic.

Scan your penis for malware?

Scan has detected 8 problems with your penis.

Report as penis-spam?

You are forbidden from accessing this penis-page.

New penis.dic software is available.

Your penis hard-drive has crashed.

Report error to penis.dic?

Please tell penis.dic about this problem.

Would you like to change your penis password?

Log off penis?



hans ostrom 2013

"I Could Not Drink It," by Emily Dickinson

Triviality and Guilt

I celebrate your new coiffure
and worry about the hungry and the poor
at the same time. What
good does either trivial focus or guilt
do to affect big problems? I state
the question in a homely way.

I congratulate your hips
and fret over how White Americans
will never "get it"
(until they get it).
What good? Fuckin' white people.

I remark on a grey cat's
behavior and think of
our water on fire
our air carcinogenic
our land
either flooded
or
baked
our politicians
embalmed
with corporate money,
ah, what good?

I rest my teeth
on the image of a chrome fender
and I wonder
how many bombs "we"
have dropped, on what,
on whom, and why
(why not!)
since, say,
1941. What. Good?




hans ostrom 2013

Poli-Tics

Politics
Slit
Tic
Clot
Slop
It
Slip
Post
Plot
Lot
Cop
Lop
Sop
Cot
Lit
Lip
Lisp
List
Politics




hans ostrom 2013