Bigot Nation Blues

I don't want to cope.
I just want to leave.
U.S. is Bigot Nation,
you'd best believe.

A rapist, racist xenophobe:
commander in chief.
Just like psycho slaveholders
(to be brief).

War-crazed haters run this
place, and there's no reprieve.
I don't want to cope.
I've run out of hope,
and I just want to leave.

I just want to leave.
Duties keep me here.
I see so many people
terrorized, in fear.
I don't want to cope.
I've run out of hope,
I wish I could get clear.



hans ostrom 2016

Answer Sampler

I've prepared several answers

for you in the unlikely event

we meet and you feel like

posing questions.  Here's a 

five-piece sampler:

"Yes, the U.S. is a racist shit

hole"; "ten minutes"; "zinnias";

"Frederick Douglass"; "maybe."

hans ostrom 2016

White Pendulum

That the political pendulum swings
in the U.S. isn't important. That
White Supremacists designed and operate
the pendulum is the thing to remember
(not that you forgot).  It's a nation
founded by slave-holders and ethnic
cleansers.  (I'm seeing a pattern here.)

This is where we live, and the old news
still lacerates.  I'd pray for us all
except it seems at best quaint--
like knowing things, relying
on evidence, and resisting depravity.



hans ostrom 2016

Concerning the Kodak Brownie Target 6-20 Box Camera

Photos used to be dear currency,
transferred generationally like
jewelry. ("That's the only photo
we have of your great Uncle Ali!")

Deflation has set in. Digital spaces
trade in counterfeit images. Nobody
cares.  Photos once deemed great
are too much seen, bore.

Selfie poses have been formulated
into sub-genres. Porn proliferates
like mold. Seriously, topsoil is
rarer than photography.

However, I do keep a modest
trace of magic in an aged Kodak
Brownie box camera, with
Art Deco decoration. This

camera is so simple it's like a sneeze.
Its click is as as quiet as
a mouse's sigh. And the Brownie
knows how to keep a secret.


hans ostrom 2016

Certain Beverages

Hot chocolate is independent, comforting, and interesting,
like a tastefully dressed and perfumed woman
sitting at a bar who knows how to hold a conversation.

A shot or more of vodka is like a broad, iced
highway when you've just been handed
the keys to a black Corvette with failed
headlights and bald tires.

A German beer from the tap
is a highly trained, reserved professional,
absolutely dependable.

If you specify the red wine as Beaujolais,
then I will want to be of assistance
to multiple French women at once,
most likely in October, in Paris, and forgive me
if, momentarily, I confuse the situation
with paradise. As to retsina,

God help me, I did love it, as one
might love an athletic, deceptively
savvy woman from a rural province.

If you would ask me about God,
I would refer you to clean alpine creek-water.


hans ostrom 2016

The Schedule of Time and Space

Did space and time arrive at the same
time? Maybe time arrived on time
and space was running late. Or

Space could have been hanging around
waiting for the concept start to start.
And both time and space reported
for duty before the Big Bang, right?

It's all rather enormous and confusing.
I suppose it doesn't matter now, now
that matter is, and is space taking time
to rearrange itself constantly. Anyway,

it can't be any accident that Einstein,
whose schedule included lots of work
with time and space, developed
a comic affect.


hans ostrom 2016

Blood Under a Thumbnail

It's the dark lake under the ice.
It's the reminder-in-residence
of pain and of an accident
that called you "Fool!"
It's the risible badge
of an apprentice carpenter,
and the mark of death
on a doomed slate
of the keratin matrix.
It's a fact that laughs at philosophy.


hans ostrom 2016

Floating Windows

Like you, I've noticed windows without buildings,
ghost panes floating above city streets.
Local officials sometimes gather to argue
about how to get them washed, and would it
be a union job? Boosters plot
a Floating Pane Festival.

Local professors challenge the physics,
opposing plain sight. Like you,
I'm thankful that these hovering frames
of glass are at least something fresh
and new, for the city is, like all cities,
a weary site of congealed geometries
covering underground rivers of liquid dung.



hans ostrom 2016

Chess Teachings

This is just to confirm that a dance
is more pleasurable than a fist fight.

Geometry likes to stretch.

If the Queen is close by,
do not deny it

Death is death. The end
of a game is not death.

Never get angry at a machine
if you know where the off switch is.
And even if you don't.

Follow a method until
the first surprise.  Then stay
calm, look at your surroundings,
and make a judgement.

If you're healthy, you're winning.

Play with the person.
Play against the person's symbols.

Always have food and water on hand,
if you can.

Remember to breathe.

Neither a flag nor a game
is more important than
a roof that doesn't leak.

Hurry less, fret less, and smile more.

Always know ahead of time
what you're going to do after
the game and why.


hans ostrom 2016

The Way of the Manatee

I gather manatees like to swim,
float, ogle, eat lettuce, fart,
be in/make a family, and sleep.

This represents a simplistic
but not altogether unworkable
approach to living life on Earth.


hans ostrom 2016

Marcella Hazan's Minestrone Recipe

It seems to be getting difficult to find minestrone soup, let alone good minestrone soup, in Italian restaurants.  Another First World problem.

Minestrone is probably a little too "country," or at least insufficiently hip, for most menus.

This is the best recipe for minestrone I know--Marcella Hazan's.  MH was Julia Child's go-to person for Italian recipes, if that matters.  Of course, if you're just wanting to throw together a minestrone, and especially if you have a vegetable garden of some kind, you can improvise on the recipe.  For example, I've substituted Swiss chard for the cabbage, and sometimes I throw a few leaves of kale in there. I prefer Yukon gold potatoes.

INGREDIENTS

1. • • 1 lb Zucchini
   • • 1/2 cup Olive Oil
   • • 3 Tbs Butter
   • • 1 cup Onion, sliced very thin
   • • 1 cup Carrots, diced
   • • 1 cup Celery, diced
   • • 2 cups Potatoes, peeled & diced
   • • 1/2 lb Green Beans
   • • 3 cups shredded Cabbage
   • • 1 1/2 cups canned Cannellini Beans, drained
   • • 4 cups Beef Broth
   • • 2 cups Water
   • • Parmesan Rind
   • • 2/3 cup canned Plum Tomatoes, with juice
   • • 1/3 cup Parmesan, grated

PREPARATION

1. 1. • 1 Soak the zucchini in a large bowl of water at least 20 minutes. Drain and dice fine. Soak the green beans in water, drain, trim and dice. • 2 In a large stockpot, mix the oil, butter and sliced onion. Turn the heat to medium-low and cook until onion wilts and becomes pale gold, but not darker. • 3 Add the diced carrots and cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Then add the celery and cook 2 to 3 minutes. Add the potatoes and cook 2 to 3 minutes. Add the green beans and cook 2 to 3 minutes. Add the zucchini and cook 2 to 3 minutes. Add the shredded cabbage and cook for another 5 to 6 minutes. • 4 Add the broth, water, cheese rind, and tomatoes with juice. Salt very lightly. Stir thoroughly. Cover the pot, and lower the heat to simmer. • When the soup has cooked 2 1/2 hours, add the drained cannellini beans. Stir and cook another 30 minutes. Just before serving, remove the cheese rind. Swirl in the grated cheese and season with salt and pepper. Note: While one vegetable is cooking, peel and cut up another.

Words Words

Words is a good word, a knotted morpheme.

Words look a lot like cinders.  Bits of black
and gray settled on paper, floating on screens.

Sometimes words sound like water
quarreling with piers at a quay.

We ask too much of words.  They go
along with it, fooling us into fooling ourselves.

These are a few more words rising, floating.


hans ostrom 2016

Ballpark Figures

Pitcher:

He or she has just discovered the North Pole
and, behind the back, holds a snowball,
glowering down at the world.

Catcher:

The amalgam.
Body, a badger's.
Face, a prisoner's.
Legs, a knight's.
One arm, a deaf person's.
The other arm, a crab's.

Umpire:

An angry parent
yelling at the kids,
who just want to play.

Outfielders:

Three deer graze in a meadow.
A shot rings out.
They raise their heads.
They're on the move.

First Base:

A hometown kid.
Rarely leaves the house
but entertains a lot.

Dugout:

A rookery.
One bird leaves.
The others rearrange themselves.

Crowd:

Wildflowers on a terraced slope.
Blotches of paint.
A chorus of bees.

Third Base:

This one guards a thin white line.
An accountant.
Foul or fair. Profit or loss.

Second Base:

The bull charges.
The bullfighter whirls and leaps.

Shortstop: 

Holds dual citizenship.
Travels a lot.
Rents, doesn't own.
Not a joiner.

Vendor:

An evangelist.

Base Coaches:

Performance artists,
gossips, and hired applauders.

Pitching Coach:

A lachrymose intermediary.

Managers:

When they arise from the basement,
it means trouble has come.
Adults forced to wear children's clothes.