Wish Lists for the Dead

You know there's these online wish-lists
for people about to get married.
Toaster (1). Champagne glasses (12).
That sort of thing. A lot of pre-newlyweds
just want cash. Why did I just write "just"?

Anyway, I think there should be wish-lists
for people who've just died. Some things
with far more granularity than a will
or a trust or a box of photos. Bouquet
for Giselle (1). Fuck-you to cousin
Rexx (3). Trees planted (1,345,238).
Bourbon-and-branch-water for
Dolores (3). Kind word (1).


hans ostrom 2016

I Demand to Know

A dragonfly, wearing standard-issue
lead goggles, downshifts its wings,
which when still look like foggy
cracked windows. Resting,

this dragonfly pulses. Its curved
blue tail befriended a scorpion
once during a vacation in Mexico.

I demand to know
what this dragonfly thinks.


hans ostrom 2016

The Fiddler's Response

The absorption of music operates
individualistically, in spite of
communal structures, hitocracies,
group performance, and ubiquitous
corporate dispensers. Thus

was the violin-player in a four-
person acoustic jazz band induced
by the present music and her
personal compunctions to play
with her hair, twisting it with
one finger, then looking at it

as if it were a clue; this, as
she waited (was she waiting?)
for a guitarist to complete
his wailing interval.


* "wailing interval"--sometimes
used by Duke Ellington to refer to
an instrumental solo


hans ostrom 2016

Mutant Pop Song

I don't want to see you tonight.
Baby. I want to see you sometime
today. Let's say between 1:00 and
2:40 in the afternoon. I want
to sniff your abdomen.  Baby.

I would walk many kilometers
to be with you. Just not all at once.
Plus you're the one with the car.
Oh, oh Baby. 

Cool Reaper

We who will be harvested
are understandably grim
about the prospect. That
doesn't mean the reaper--
constant change--is grim.

The reaper's merely
impersonal, although our
misery is not. That
coolness chills the blade
and menaces the hopeful,
who are hopeless.


hans ostrom 2016

Nevada

A human view has it that
a city of casinos and libertines
will be the center of sin
while piety flourishes on
the sagebrush plateau. God
probably thinks otherwise,
not being human. Not
opposite, just otherwise.


hans ostrom 2016

Faith Is Bulbs

Faith? Don't speak to me of Allah, Yahweh,
Jahova, Christ, Moses, da Buddha-man, Zeus,
Sky Papa, Earth Mama--or any of it.

I'm no atheist. I'm a modest gardener,
vegetables and flowers, who in Spring
is online-ordering tulip bulbs to plant

in October and to witness the following
Spring. That is faith.


hans ostrom 2016

Mutant Country-Song

When it all falls apart
and I'm lying on my deathbed,
I hope the Lord'll forgive me for
what flashes through my head.

"I hope someone's getting laid,"
for example. Or "I hate Nashville
worse than bosses." Or "I don't
think God gives two shits about
your politics--or your religion."
And, of course, "Ouch, that hurts
like a motherfu--."

[Docking complete: begin transfer
of pickup truck (old), farm, train,
mama, daddy, pretty girl, "darlin'", 
we, they, goodbye, dancin', 
hungover, fishin', gospel.]

I hope the Lord'll forgive me
for what may flash through my head
when everything falls apart and
I'm lying on my deathbed--or

on a couch, a highway, grass,
the crapper (Elvis!), a stretcher,
or a woman (darlin').


hans ostrom 2016

The Director of the Center

He's the Director of the Center for Let's
Wait and See. He's been worn down by
urgency. His social network includes a few
remaining pragmatic empiricists, resigned
skeptics, and anti-dualists. the CLWS
believes culture's terribly noisy, even
for the deaf, and maliciously distracting.
CLWS does all it can, which isn't a lot,

to promote counter-measures.
For there's so much drama
and so little repair,
not to mention
thoughtful original design. The
Director chooses not to whine.


hans ostrom 2016

Curve of Life

Hello, curve of life.
Darling, you bend me.
You give me the blues.
So generous.

From all directions
(he whined and over-stated),
comes the onslaught of aging.
I'm too tired to list them.

Mitosis and meiosis. Oh,
how fresh my cells were
when I first studied cells.
La-dee-dah. Curve of life,

where will you take me? Over
a dark ridge--and then soaring
over vast landscapes under stars?
Perhaps something a bit less fancy.


hans ostrom 2016

Our Days to Get Through

Everybody has a day to get through.
It may look like other people's days
to other people, but no: each person's
particulars make the day unique. Many
days I don't feel like I've known anyone,
and each time I feel that differently.


hans ostrom 2016

Song: Another Kind of Eden

It's another kind of Eden, I supposed.
What do you think: Should we remove our clothes?
We're on a rugged beach.
The seagulls strut and screech.
And in the sun your lovely person glows.




hans ostrom 2016

I Had My Eyes On You

I had my eyes on you. They were
those plastic ones from the novelty store.
I had them on your bare abdomen.
You were lying down (as

opposed to lying up) absorbing
sunheat. "I can't seem to take
my eyes off of you," I said.
Eyes closed, you said something

like "Huhnhmnm!" Which jolted
your stomach-muscles. My eyes
tumbled off onto what covers
Earth's crust. You put your eyes

on me--a warning glare. That's when
the devil showed up in the form
of the neighborhood's vicious
cat. I cast an eye at him--missed.

But he scampered. "Get you out
of here!"I yelled. "Same goes for you,"
you said to me. I gathered my eyes
and kept spinning in space on

this thing we call a planet.


hans ostrom 2016