The Mother of All Poems

When I think about writing the mother
of all poems that is to say a big serious
poem about my mother, I think about
the poem I wrote, in Karl Shapiro's class,
about how a piano contains all notes,
all potential melodies, etc., in some kind
of ideal way. And after I read it, Shapiro
said to the class, "D.H. Lawrence wrote
a poem about a piano, but it was really
about his mother; he was in love with
her." I found the comment unhelpful,

plus suggestive of incest. Oh, well:
workshops. I also think of my mother
and her low tolerance for nonsense,
such as puppets and murderers.  She
sat on the jury that convicted serial
killer Larry Lord Motherwell (ahem),
which was the name he, Frank
Eugene Caventer, gave himself,
a nom de meurtrier.

Ma wanted to make sure Motherwell
got the gas chamber, and she never forgave
the one juror who prevented that.
Anyway, I really don't feel like writing
an ambitious poem about my mother.
It seems like too much work for too
little gain, and I don't know--
Freud, Shapiro, and millions of
other people have kind of ruined
the subject for me.  My mother liked
to drink Hamm's beer out of the can.


hans ostrom 2017

Crop-Burning, Kansas

Dusk, and we're moving on I-35
through Kansas.  West of us, green
land dissolves into dissolving
available light. Sky flares

at the horizon. East of us,
flames razor yellow patterns
on black, burning undulating
land. In the car talking,

we weave a makeshift fabric
of family lore, wounds and
resentments, hilarities. One
of us glances ahead through

the windshield: rear lights
of cars burn hot and red
like lit cigarette tips.
Green land fades altogether.

Red sky goes pink, goes gray.

Night will arrive before Wichita
does. We're not anywhere very long.




hans ostrom 2017

It's 1954 and Emmett Kelly remembers

the Hartford, Connecticut, circus fire,
1944: the big tent went up,

and people panicked like animals,
but the big cats got strangely calm.

The famous clown rushed from
the small dressing-tent in makeup,

managed more authority than a cop
because a clown's not supposed

to speak, so when he spoke,
the wild eyed customers listened.

They let him save their lives
with a frown.  Back in his tent,

he said to Willie in the mirror,
"No show tonight. No show

in Clown Alley."  Other clowns
entered, hysterical, said who'd lived,

who hadn't. (168 hadn't.)
"You were wonderful," they told Emmett,

who had removed half of Willie's face.
As Kelly he shrugged. "I did what I could."

Now in 1954, Madison Square Garden,
Emmett's put on half of Willie's face.

He feels weary.  He tells an interviewer,
"Clowning is nothing you can study for."



hans ostrom 2017

Transformation: Dementia

He remembers language
but not his memory. He speaks
of what he sees. He scratches
his knees. A straggling memory
wanders by, covered with soot
from a burnt whole life.

To this memory he says hello.
Does not recall why he said
hello. Does not recall that
he said hello. He doesn't
remember scratching his knees.
He speaks. He sees. He listens
to speaking he speaks. It does
not interest him. This does:
An aroma. Of . . .?

He falls asleep in front of
what he sees. Outside of his sleep,
we speak of what we remember
of his memory using some of
the language he used to recall.


hans ostrom 2017

"Into the Strenuous Briefness," by e.e. cummings

"A Long Time Ago: a Dialogue," by Hans Ostrom

"Keen, Fitful Gusts," by John Keats

Crow Travel

Just sitting outside in search of
fresh air, not looking for them:
a couple hundred crows
flying southeast across a chalk sky.

Were they coming from the famous
crow compound and annual banquet
on Whidbey Island?  Hell, I
didn't know.  Crows don't

fly in formation, not like those
fascist geese. In fact, they looked
like they'd been in a weed cafe
in Amsterdam or something--

just kind of flap-sauntering.
They flew in two groups.
Between the intervals, a solitary
crow flew from the same

direction, landed on a tree,
and got loud, as if to say,
"I didn't want to go with y'all
anyway!" Borderline personality.

I don't think it was migration.
More like they were off to
an academic crow conference
or a big wedding. Crows

just look like they have a better
handle on this reality thing.
They're not all out of control
and self-destructive like us.



hans ostrom 2017

"Deep in the Quiet Wood," by James Weldon Johnson

Velton's Testimony

Judge (said Velton), I submit
that yellow Lombardy poplar
leaves staggering down the breeze
from the trees recall butterflies:
that peculiar aerodynamic
jaggedry.  May it please the court,
such impressionistic reports
on natural scenes are worthless
and thus desirable in any age
of frenzied valuation, addictive
greed, and amphetamined commerce.



hans ostrom 2017

Velton Stopped Cheering

Velton stopped cheering
at football games and football
matches when he realized
that no one could hear him
above the noise.



hans ostrom 2017

"Life," by James Weldon Johnson

This Fall, White Supremacy Blooms

The forests are ablaze, the sun is red,
and a light snow of ash falls. White
Supremacy blooms again, giving off
its acrid odor, its menacing stench.

More than a few White college
students fully feel the old power
their forebears wielded like a scythe.
In front of Black professors (where

there are any), they yawn, stretch,
roll eyes, pick matter from their hair,
their eyes, their ears.  They savor
the insolence of re-authorization.

They get drunk and yell, "I am
the One Per Cent!" and offer
other triumphalist biscuits
to the air, which they own.

Not that they ever
were going to change, but
now any pressure to know or care,
to arise from racist sloth,

has dissipated like the particles
from scorched trees.
An old White bloated Hitler
knockoff at the American helm

massages the radioactive core
of the country and his Party,
Dixiecrats in drag. So White
students are as free as ever

to treat learning as a running
joke, to swagger, to luxuriate
in the shade of official hatred
behind the citadel walls. Its their

choice. It's always been their choice.


hans ostrom 2017