Fingernail Clippers

I don't know what they're called
in Italian or Russian or Turkish
but I intend to find out.

They are a singular plural
in English.

A sea creature of lore had a
gigantic, snub-nosed head
and a tapering body. Our
digital blacksmiths hammer
out replicas.

Lever and fulcrum and
paired toothless blades:
the spare architecture
of a specialized tool.

Owing to his mania,
the reclusive billionaire
eschewed clippers and let
his fingernails accrue
like stalactites. They clicked
like scurrying roaches.

Crows and monkeys groom
each other, picking bugs
from feathers and fur. A calm
comes over them as they pick
and peck. Thinking of them,
I clip a thumbnail--hiding,
like them, from hunger and
fear for a moment, attending
silently to a bodily chore.


hans ostrom 2020

Image Apocalypse

Images, images, I'm so sick
of images. We're in an Image
Apocalypse, an exponential
blizzard experience behind
eyes open, eyes closed. No
way to stop it (no one seems
to want to). It's like--

no, I won't say what it to me
is like. I'm going to keep that
image to myself. It's called
image restraint, people. Give
it a try. Take one less selfie,
one less otherlie. Mute
and mask a meme or three.


hans ostrom

2020

Machine Eden

       "All watched over by machines of loving grace."
                                    --Richard Brautigan


Having established a friendship
with a machine connected to machines,
he felt better about himself.

What had analogous reality
ever done for him aside from
the conception-and-birth thing?

Nothing but problems after that.
Maybe before he dies--thanks,
reality--he'll be able, he thinks,

to live in a world completely
virtual, a self contained in
machined containment. Heaven.


hans ostrom 2020

Books on a Bed

A small pile of books on a bed.
Six paperbacks, one hardback,
all used, handled. Not so different
from beach debris. Here, says the sea,
here are some stories someone
dropped inside me. They're free.


hans ostrom 2020

Word Warehouse

He always listened to people. (And
to birds, for that matter.) Now that seems
to be all he does--listens, without talking.
He's forgetting how to converse. So

is society, but that's different. Or is it?
He feels like a worker at a word warehouse.
He opens the loading bay, and people
deliver their words, which he shelves.

Sometimes the freighters hang around,
expecting him to say something, so
he tries, and they leave. He's relieved.
He knows he shouldn't be. He stands

listening to the warehouse quietly.


hans ostrom 2020

Classy Sun

All that light today. So generous
of the sun, the only one.
The shape of objects could be known
without touching them: often helpful

A crow poked at a bone,
which shone pearly gray.
I was witness to this and other
tableaux, as sunfalls

poured down and down
and the sun gave as much
of itself as it could. It is
a dedicated, hard-working star.

I waved my appreciation.
The sun acknowledged this
by splashing some light
on my hand. Classy.


hans ostrom 2020

Clark Terry's Ballads

(recording: Clark After Dark)

Come inside, where it's mellow dusk
and bourbon brown. I can turn it into noon
at any time, then back to blurry twilight. All
right, come outside--look: red, yellow, and blue
blossoms still want your attention.  Listen

to vespering birds, hear wordless
words of traffic, of trees in rustle
and streets in hustle. Back inside
we'll take note of desire, climb a set
of stairs, so easily. We might be

caught unawares by something sweet
smiling there in mischievous shadows.
It could be us in mirror. It could be
a woman or a man or a ghost. Or just
the house itself, itself, listening.


hans ostrom 2020

Under a Roof, Wondering

Environmental doom, catastrophic war: these clots
of syllables squat in my mind when my mind

prefers to ponder cold rain coming in from
the Pacific, coming down with uncanny steadiness,

crackling on roofs and windows like spiders
wearing cleats. I order fresher syllables to arrive

carrying different ideas--rivulets, storm, traffic
rush, water (water!) I offer them a hot beverage,

tell them to let their vowels and consonants
rest a while, because I feel like just hanging out

with some words tonight, under a roof, wondering.


hans ostrom 2020

Scene Blue and Green

The scene is blue and green.
Blue like shadow indigo.
Green like pine and fir tree
boughs. Blue and green cover

tall roughly rounded mountains,
ravines between. Air
is almost too fresh to be
other than cherished. The day

is cold and gray. You are cold,
not gray. You see a mist-fog
rise from a quick narrow river
into mountains and ravines,
into green and blue. You think,

the scene is not officially
beautiful, commodity pretty,
but to you superb. You feel

the scene insinuating sadness,
wielding power. Grief
and irrevocable loneliness
seem involved. You
want to go in and get warm
but not enough to leave
the scene of seeing blue and green.


hans ostrom 2020

Transformation: Russian Poet

When I become a Russian poet,
I write lines like "I walked home
from the universe after midnight."
In my diary, I record hunger,
infatuation, death, more death,
prayer, gibberish--and passion
that screams in my throat.

I read American poetry
and wonder, "When will
they ever grow up?" I was
born grown up. It's the Russian
way. I write poems
about white birches, inconstant
lovers, and ice--in spite
of myself. Poetry was invented
everywhere but especially,
especially in Russia.


hans ostrom 2019

Know Your Place

Virtual virtiginous vanity,
digital indignities,
resounding robotic rhetoric: oh,
what shall we tell the angels
when we see them? No

worries: angels own their
own hyper-reality and know
their way around algorithmic
dances that created them.

Perhaps you find yourself
wishing to turn away
from the sheer volume and mass
of human activity. Well,

you may not. It's not
allowed. Though exponentially
trivial, you remain a datum.
Know your place. And don't
leave it.


hans ostrom 2019

A Little Song of Should and Would and Could

I should have done this,
and I should have done that.
I should have been a forester
and worn a woodsy hat.

I could have done that,
and I could have done this.
I could have climbed Everest
had I not been so remiss.

I would have done less,
and I would have done more
had I had a better notion
of what this life is for.

Regret is rather useless,
regret is kind of dumb.
Cussing out oneself
only makes one numb.

I hope you're doing what
you should and could and would
according to your tastes
and what you think is good.

And what you think is good:
I hope it makes some sense.
Too many make bad good
Under thus-and-such pretense.



hans ostrom 2019

Dublin Perambulation

Parnell's Protestant, pugnacious statue
directs foot traffic, which today
is syrupy slow and sweet, a mix
of Kerry green and Dublin blue
on the big day of Gaelic football
championships match: "All

amateur, mind you, and good
for the family," says everyone
we've listened to about the matter.

On wide O'Connell Street,
buskers and beggars attract
brassy coins like bees
in the names of art and pity.

Then here comes the autumn
breeze, as fresh as, well,
I don't know what, but
it's hauling ass down the street.

And here comes a casino,
"Dr. Quigley's Goodtimes Emporium,"
how droll, how not-Las-Vegas.
Skulking, big, and befuddled,
I buy braided strands of cerulean
wool yarn and declare ritual
loyalty to the Boys in Blue."

But really I'm thinking of the
main fortress in town. It is
circular, and it's a library.
Two great ideas married.

My hip aches like history's teeth,
and although I appreciate Yeats
and Joyce, Lady Gregory
and Eavan Boland, and 1916,
and the troubles, and wit, I just want
some brown bread and jam..

Anxious shrieking seagulls
in St. Stephen's Green seem
to agree with me. Dublin's
and easy city, if--as with all
cities--you have a bit of money.
The swan I see in the big
pond came from Coole,
that's a lie, and I'm hungry.


hans ostrom 2019