"Poem For Speculative Hipsters," by Amiri Baraka

Amiri Baraka has died at age 79. Rest in peace.

Sugar Blues

If I cry for the sugar,
that don't mean the sugar's mine.
Say if I cry for the sugar,
doesn't mean the sugar's mine.
But if you should own the sugar,
doesn't mean the system's fine.

Did you work for the sugar?
I bet your answer's Yes and No.
Ah, did you work for your sugar?
Oh, yeah: the answer's Yes and No.
You didn't do a lick of work,
but yes you put up half the dough.

Wealth don't have a conscience.
It gets as far as maybe guilt.
Wealth don't have no conscience,
only gets as far as guilt.
Right-and-wrong will never bother
the fortress that the wealthy built.

Sugar blues, sugar blues.
Somebody else has got the sweet.
Sugar blues, sugar blues.
I'll never get enough of sweet.
I'm a lost soul on a corner,
a fallen saint out on the street.


copyright hans ostrom 2014

When A Poem Rebels

. . . So anyway, there I was, several

lines into a poem. And the poem

says to me, “That’s it. I quit.”

And I say, “Whoa, I’m just getting

started.” Poem says, “Exactly.”




hans ostrom 2014

Lost Characters

A dock at a lake at night:

the moon. We’ll talk there—

yes: they will have

decided to send us there.


We can’t plan what to say,

and we have no author.

But on the dock, we’ll be

and, being, we’ll know

then what to say.


hans ostrom 2014

Paranormal Boredom

The ghost

fell asleep on

the couch

watching a

"reality" TV-show

about paranormal

activity.



hans ostrom 2014

Agoraphobic New Year

(to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne")


Will agoraphobics please

come out and help

bring in the Year?


No, that's all right. Thanks

anyway; we can see from

here just fine!



hans ostrom 2014

from New Year Letter, by W.H. Auden

Oh, Of Course, Yes

Oh, of course, yes sir,
I'd very much like to pay
to watch another film
about sociopathic Americans
starring Robert De Niro or
it-doesn't-matter-who. Yes,
fascinating, humorous, ha-ha,
chuckles. No, of course,
there really aren't any
other subjects for cinema
that are quite as interesting
and exciting. Yes, sir, I am
very happy with the cinema
you provide. You are a genius!
Everyone in Hollywood is a genius!


hans ostrom 2013

Zombie Poets

They're not the Undead.
They're the Unread.

They stagger toward you
in cafes and bars,
carrying moist notebooks,
possibly wearing berets.

(Some of them were once
famous and popular. Old
anthologies muffle their
screams like thick
asylum-walls.)

They are all over
the Internet, the Unread.
("Eloise, why does he write
'they" and not 'we'?")

So much writing, so
little reading. They occupy
the night. They read poems
outside closed libraries.

They get high, the Unread,
and they behave badly in hopes
of becoming the next Bukowski.

In your nightmare,
they smother you with thousands
of saddle-stapled chapbooks
and eat from your refrigerator.
Cue ghostly music.. . . The Unread!



hans ostrom 2013

These Things Called Years

These artificial things called "years":
how annoying. They're perceptual engines
that drive us through our lives, keep us
rushed and harried, depressed and habituated.

It all starts again on "January First,"
which we're urged to celebrate. On the
Second, we must report to work on time
or get fired, and we must start

counting the god-damned shopping-days left
til the Apocalyptic Sale. (Everything must go.)


hans ostrom 2013

"The Magi," by William Butler Yeats

"Christmas Eve, Nearing Midnight, New York," by Langston Hughes

Christmas Found Poem

You should know two things before you read this. One, the language was directed at me, and, two, there is cursing.


Christmas Found Poem

I think you
are the only
one I can
think of who
would say something
like ". . . Those
fucking Christmas
macaroons."


hans ostrom 2013