That which happens, especially the bad:
is it design or accident? we ask.
Often we ask it. Many who are also human
will provide responses. You have
heard the range of answers.
Reality, that
universal beast, does not
respond, except for its
continual and infinite shrug,
which can be interpreted
as yes or no or maybe
or I don't understand the question.
hans ostrom 2013
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
What Exactly Do You Mean?
Divine algorithms
press against
brittle positivist
walls, disturbing
the binary peace.
God did well in math.
hans ostrom 2013
press against
brittle positivist
walls, disturbing
the binary peace.
God did well in math.
hans ostrom 2013
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
I'm Going To Need You To
I am going to need you to
give me your license and registration.
I am going to need you to
show me your hands.
I am going to need you to
get out of the car.
I am going to need you to
get down, get down!
I am going to need you to
shut up, stop talking.
I am going to need you to
what the fuck are you doing?
I am going to need you to
stop acting Not White.
I am going to need you to
give me a reason.
I am going to need you to
be ignorant of history.
I am going to need you to
die from the bullets I shoot.
I am going to need you to
die.
I am going to need you to
not be photographed.
I am going to need you to
understand I need my union rep.
I am going to need you to
accept the verdict.
I am going to need you to
not go crazy, riot, fight.
I am going to need you to
accept what's right.
I am going to need to
accept what is RIGHT.
I am going to need you.
hans ostrom 2013
give me your license and registration.
I am going to need you to
show me your hands.
I am going to need you to
get out of the car.
I am going to need you to
get down, get down!
I am going to need you to
shut up, stop talking.
I am going to need you to
what the fuck are you doing?
I am going to need you to
stop acting Not White.
I am going to need you to
give me a reason.
I am going to need you to
be ignorant of history.
I am going to need you to
die from the bullets I shoot.
I am going to need you to
die.
I am going to need you to
not be photographed.
I am going to need you to
understand I need my union rep.
I am going to need you to
accept the verdict.
I am going to need you to
not go crazy, riot, fight.
I am going to need you to
accept what's right.
I am going to need to
accept what is RIGHT.
I am going to need you.
hans ostrom 2013
Monday, December 2, 2013
Grave-Digging
You're in the toiling moment,
grunting, swatting mosquitoes
attracted by your sweat,
separating rocks from dirt.
You're using a pick, you're
shoveling, you're measuring
for length, depth, and width.
And then you're standing in a
grave, hearing your lungs
heave for breath, wiping
your forehead with a work-shirt
sleeve. You're listening
to a bird or two in the still
cemetery. It takes effort
to get out of the dug grave.
You take a last look,
think briefly of a body
in a box, then move into
whatever's left of the flow
called day, called life,
before your consciousness
is picked from your body
and your body,
if not burnt up,
is put in a grave to mold
and to rot and to be food
for sundry creatures
in their own version of the flow.
Yes, your body,
which once dug a grave,
will go into a grave
somebody dug, probably
not by hand like you
but with machinery.
hans ostrom 2013
grunting, swatting mosquitoes
attracted by your sweat,
separating rocks from dirt.
You're using a pick, you're
shoveling, you're measuring
for length, depth, and width.
And then you're standing in a
grave, hearing your lungs
heave for breath, wiping
your forehead with a work-shirt
sleeve. You're listening
to a bird or two in the still
cemetery. It takes effort
to get out of the dug grave.
You take a last look,
think briefly of a body
in a box, then move into
whatever's left of the flow
called day, called life,
before your consciousness
is picked from your body
and your body,
if not burnt up,
is put in a grave to mold
and to rot and to be food
for sundry creatures
in their own version of the flow.
Yes, your body,
which once dug a grave,
will go into a grave
somebody dug, probably
not by hand like you
but with machinery.
hans ostrom 2013
Sunday, December 1, 2013
At Lake Polyester
I was fly-casting aspersions
into the fetid waters
of Lake Polyester when
a squad of bankers
bum-rushed me
and knocked me about.
“Stay off our land, drifter,”
they said. I let them say
it twice more, for practice,
and then said, “This isn’t
your land, and I’m not
a drifter.” They said Oh
and ran fast to find
legal counsel. Several
women studying their
own voluptuousness
waved to me from
across the lake. Sunlight
on their curves and
globes became a
sermon, and I believed.
hans ostrom 2013
into the fetid waters
of Lake Polyester when
a squad of bankers
bum-rushed me
and knocked me about.
“Stay off our land, drifter,”
they said. I let them say
it twice more, for practice,
and then said, “This isn’t
your land, and I’m not
a drifter.” They said Oh
and ran fast to find
legal counsel. Several
women studying their
own voluptuousness
waved to me from
across the lake. Sunlight
on their curves and
globes became a
sermon, and I believed.
hans ostrom 2013
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Monday, November 25, 2013
A Day, A Season
(Mainz, Germany)
At dusk suddenly shrubs
blacken like over-ripe fruit.
Cries of children playing
soccer diminish. In last light,
women walk dogs in the park
before winos shuffle in,
rustling like cockroaches.
These and other gestures
of light, air, traffic, hunger,
routine, and business seem this
evening profound enough to be
called seasonal. The evening
seems large. There was the solitary
dying sunflower in the old woman's
garden today. Its sagging head
looked tragically rotten. Its
sad, dappled leaves hung like the fins
of a beached sea-mammal. Old
people boarding the bus now
in Mainz-Bretzenheim climb
into gray light. The bus
groans away from the curb.
hans ostrom 1980/2013
At dusk suddenly shrubs
blacken like over-ripe fruit.
Cries of children playing
soccer diminish. In last light,
women walk dogs in the park
before winos shuffle in,
rustling like cockroaches.
These and other gestures
of light, air, traffic, hunger,
routine, and business seem this
evening profound enough to be
called seasonal. The evening
seems large. There was the solitary
dying sunflower in the old woman's
garden today. Its sagging head
looked tragically rotten. Its
sad, dappled leaves hung like the fins
of a beached sea-mammal. Old
people boarding the bus now
in Mainz-Bretzenheim climb
into gray light. The bus
groans away from the curb.
hans ostrom 1980/2013
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Friday, November 22, 2013
Including Styrofoam, Blender, and Bomb
A lime-green blender vomits a mixture. The party.
The shovel in the shed equals stolen property.
An image of the spider's body remains on the page
of the book that crushed the spider. Ideogram.
As you talk, I stare at your fingernails,
which gleam like oiled leaves under neon.
She refuses to sell her father's anvil.
We used to poke needles just under and through our skin:
no blood. The man looked at six tomatoes
and regretted inviting friends to dinner.
I want to fry many minnows,
she said. Many. ("She's losing it.")
A drawer is filled with electrical cords--
black, white, orange: to what end?
When he was eight years old, he struck another
child on the head with a croquet mallet. Clinically.
What do you mean the condom broke?
What do you mean what do you mean?
The manager pulled on his moist nose and said,
"We are going to have to wrap up this meeting."
Closure. There was nothing left of the car.
An undetonated rocket was found in the village.
The photograph is of a child's hat in
a mud puddle, along with a styrofoam container.
Green oil makes the puddle shine in the photo.
I don't know. Have you looked online?
hans ostrom
The shovel in the shed equals stolen property.
An image of the spider's body remains on the page
of the book that crushed the spider. Ideogram.
As you talk, I stare at your fingernails,
which gleam like oiled leaves under neon.
She refuses to sell her father's anvil.
We used to poke needles just under and through our skin:
no blood. The man looked at six tomatoes
and regretted inviting friends to dinner.
I want to fry many minnows,
she said. Many. ("She's losing it.")
A drawer is filled with electrical cords--
black, white, orange: to what end?
When he was eight years old, he struck another
child on the head with a croquet mallet. Clinically.
What do you mean the condom broke?
What do you mean what do you mean?
The manager pulled on his moist nose and said,
"We are going to have to wrap up this meeting."
Closure. There was nothing left of the car.
An undetonated rocket was found in the village.
The photograph is of a child's hat in
a mud puddle, along with a styrofoam container.
Green oil makes the puddle shine in the photo.
I don't know. Have you looked online?
hans ostrom
Some prompts for writing L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E poetry and/or surrealistic poetry
(Some prompts we used in a poetry class today, based in part on some reading we did (Breton's Surrealist Manifesto, poems by Hejinian, Bly, and Tate, among others.)
#2 was the most popular choice, followed by #4
1. Describe any ordinary task or activity—brushing your teeth, buying a cup of coffee, whatever—and interject random images, actions, or utterances to create the effect of a dream.
2. Write down memories of your life, one sentence per memory, but put them in random order. Events, images, things you said, things you heard others say, etc.
3. Think about a boring situation you had to/have to endure. Waiting at an airport. Listening to a professor. Etc. Then describe it with a list of extravagant comparisons. “Waiting at the airport is like cooking dragon-flesh with a Zippo lighter.” And the similes should be unrelated to on another; that is, you are not developing a conceit.
4. Describe a situation or an event that, as you recall it, did in fact seem surreal at the time. Try to capture that quality of surrealism.
5. Write down things (phrases, utterances, opinions) you hear quite a lot—from friends, room-mates, professors, co-workers, family, people you overhear. They should be unrelated. Don’t try to organize them.
6. Think of unrelated objects. A blender, a shovel, a book, a hubcap (e.g.). For each object, describe an action, which need not be logical. “The book ate a moth.” One description or action per object, then move on to the next object and its action.
hans ostrom
#2 was the most popular choice, followed by #4
1. Describe any ordinary task or activity—brushing your teeth, buying a cup of coffee, whatever—and interject random images, actions, or utterances to create the effect of a dream.
2. Write down memories of your life, one sentence per memory, but put them in random order. Events, images, things you said, things you heard others say, etc.
3. Think about a boring situation you had to/have to endure. Waiting at an airport. Listening to a professor. Etc. Then describe it with a list of extravagant comparisons. “Waiting at the airport is like cooking dragon-flesh with a Zippo lighter.” And the similes should be unrelated to on another; that is, you are not developing a conceit.
4. Describe a situation or an event that, as you recall it, did in fact seem surreal at the time. Try to capture that quality of surrealism.
5. Write down things (phrases, utterances, opinions) you hear quite a lot—from friends, room-mates, professors, co-workers, family, people you overhear. They should be unrelated. Don’t try to organize them.
6. Think of unrelated objects. A blender, a shovel, a book, a hubcap (e.g.). For each object, describe an action, which need not be logical. “The book ate a moth.” One description or action per object, then move on to the next object and its action.
hans ostrom
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