Viduality

Sometimes I'm an individual,
other times a dividual. More and more,
I'm a digividual harried
by image after image after
image. When I hold two contrasting

views at once, at once I become
a stereovidual, who listens gladly
to the paradoxical jazz of uncertainty,
ambiguous riffs unspooling, unresolved.

This viduality of mine's
less simple than certain very
certain individuals would
have me believe. They would
have me believe in my
singularity. Not so fast, say we.


hans ostrom 2019

Mimesis

"I hates those meeces to pieces!"
                   --Mr. Jinks, cartoon cat

I thought of Aristotle and held
up a mirror to the world. Sunlight
caromed off it and blinded a driver
who almost ran over me, roared
past, shouting his catharsis. I

dropped the mirror, which broke,
delighting a woman who passed by.
Borrowing a broom, I swept up
shards of mimesis, realistic glass.
A hubristic crow overhead tilted
on a line and cawed me out. Crow
was delighted. I was instructed.


hans ostrom 2019

Answers

If you think you have the answers,
don't tell me. Tell someone
who matters. I'm out here in
the weeds, walking around
a birch grove, plucking
a blackberry or five, dancing
with vivid women in the desert
of my mind. Although I'm
obscure, people with secrets
seem to find me. I'm telling
you, if you're important, don't
bother with me. I know how
little I can do about big things.


hans ostrom 2019

Palomino Summer

I drank and drank and drank
sunshine.

                I walked down
powder-dust ruts of an uncle's
dirt road and found that palomino.

Blond horse, quick as fragrance. Blond
summer, baking brown mud. Blond
grass, insane with grasshoppers.
Brown me in the the midst,

palomino's mane brushing my arms
in the rush of gallop. In the woods
next to the ranch, rattlesnakes

coiled, field mice inside them.
Pine trees leaned toward
the pasture I rode in.


hans ostrom 2019

Feel Like

You make me feel
like I have a fancy hat
on my head. The right
size, too. You make
me feel like
I could live among frogs,
as long as you were
pondside with me.

You make me feel
like a lost key
a mermaid picked up
from the bottom
of a sea. That's me.

You make me feel
like a simile
translated into
all the languages,
then printed
on the perfume
of a very peaceful day.


hans ostrom 2019

The Stolen Bin

In news of crime
in privileged places,
somebody stole
my recycling bin.

I'm a longtime
recycler. Hey, I
joined Friends of
the Earth in 1971.

(A lot of good that
did.) I did not know
until today about the
big Black Market

in big blue bins.
Maybe the thieves
sought in scraps
some digits with

which to go all
vampire on my
bloody accounts.
Instead they will

paw as I did through
unsolicited fliers
and mass-mailings.
I said to myself,

bereft of my bin,
"Why would anyone
want to . . ."--and
stopped. Why would

anyone want to
wreck the Earth?
We're way beyond
such questions.

hans ostrom 2019

How About We . . .?

Let's go, stay, sleep,
talk, eat, read, think,
and dance. Some of
these can be combined.

It's snowing in Reno.

Let's sweep, mop,
wash, scrub, sigh.
Let's weep. So hard.
Let's tell secrets.

You first.


hans ostrom 2019

It Is What It Isn't

It's a cocoa cacophony,
a chocolate noise.
It's a bluish red
flower, a purple poise.

It's a fanciful
thing like an
invisible ring.
It's the notion

that we might make
a forest in our minds,
go there, and wander
beneath giant trees,

if we should so please.


hans ostrom 2019

Monosyllables of Our Time

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hans ostrom 2019

A Statistic and I

Someone told me that
on average 153,424 people
die each day. Globally.
That's a terrible thing
to tell someone, I thought,
before thinking of the
galaxies of memory
the minds of 153,424
contained before they
vanished.


hans ostrom 2019

Memorial Cemetery

(Lakewood, Washington)

It's like farmland, groomed
by commercial lawnmowers,
not cattle. The crop consists

of brass or granite rectangles,
with names and numbers
on them, and sometimes

phrases, and sometimes
the phrase is in the second
person, a you who cannot

hear or read (so what?),
whose bones lie beneath.
There's no harvest, only

planting, deeper than
the grass. Memory must
adjust to the sound of

mowers. There are lots
of names of soldiers,
sailors, pilots, many

from what we call the
Viet Nam War Era, many
who died in their 40s.


hans ostrom 2019

Beauty Likes the Smell of Tuna

"To seek a satisfactory definition
of 'beauty,'" she said, "is as they say
like looking for a black cat in a black
room on a black night," and then
sipped from her third martini.
The bartender replied, "You just
have to remember to take
some tuna with you, then."


hans ostrom 2019

What Will You Have?

Would you like a glass
of water? Would you like
a cup of worry? I've
made some sandwiches
of bread and beauty.
And mustard, which
goes with beauty. Make
yourself at home. Because
you live here. The
satisfaction is still cooking.
It will be done soon.


hans ostrom 2019