A Common Form of Alienation

I'm a common stock in search
of a future. A laugh looking
for a joke. A surrender seeking
a peace offering. A seduced
yearning for seduction. I'm a
blank in search of a blank.
A past that's lost its present.
I'm a solution without its
problem, and that's a problem.


hans ostrom 2020

From a Diary of the Plague Year (6)

The plague has us hunkered,
crouched socially behind boundaries.
The Scots started using hunker
as a verb sometime after 1700.
They may have grabbed it from
a stash of Norse words hidden
in on a heath somewhere. Hunker,

a swift ax blow of a word,
splits the syllables of
"observe social distancing"
and turns them into kindling.

Useful when, in your exhaustion
from holing up in your worry-den,
you can manage only a few
morphemes of talk or test:
"We're hunkered down. Love, Us."


hans ostrom 2020

Concrete Details

Concrete is abstract:
planes of gray, freeways,
slabs that call forth concepts:
overpasses, underpasses,
onramps, exits, and exchanges.

Wet and soft become
dry and hard. I used to love,
and weary of, mixing it
in a spinning drum. A bucket
of water, twelve shovels-full
of aggregate, three of Portland
cement (and some calcium


chloride in Winter). Then swaggering/
staggering with a barrow full
of wet and heavy--undisciplined
slop headed up a solitary
plank for the forms.


hans ostrom 2020

Bass and Bass

4:32 a.m., can't sleep,
can't stop thinking about
bass and bass. Bass guitar,
bass fishing. I assemble
do-it-yourself-dreams--
a lake where stringed
instruments swim, leap
for bugs while cranking
thudding beats. An

orchestra full
of slime-scaled instruments
playing Debassy's Wildlife
Biology Suite--the
audience gowned out
in mosquito nets and
hip waders. I order

my mind to order
itself: Stop this!
It opens its wide mouth
and laughs, teeth full
of black musical notes.


hans ostrom 2020

From a Diary of the Plague Year (5)

Someone said to someone
as they walked by at the appropriate
pandemical remove, "Why
isn't the inactivity more uncontrived?"

The other person replied, "Is that
really what it said?"

As I was already uncontagiously
past them, I had to make up answers:
"Because we're dealing with actors" and
"No, but that's what she said it said."

Anti-social distancing is turning my life
into a French experimental film
from 1977. I'm grateful.


hans ostrom 2020

Old Sweet Song

(for J.)

I'm grateful for whatever
time we have.
I hope we soon don't have
to say goodbye.

Time is short
but love is long.
Contentment
is not wrong. 

It's been the dearest privilege
knowing you.
You've loved me and I'm still
not certain why.

Time is short
but love is long.
Contentment
is not wrong. 


hans ostrom 2020

Endodontics

Everyone in the office wears
a mask, except for the receptionist,
who asks for the money. The
endodontist hails from Lebanon
and attacks her profession:
perfect. After a few

hundred x-rays, it begins.
I'm laid back in the literal sense.
A massive multi-headed beetle
hovers over my face. It looks
like it wants to feed my gaping
mouth. A mantis-like machine
approaches to inspect. Drilling
ensues. I become Texas. I scowl.
The doc needles my gums
with more pain juice.

She packs the drilled-out cave
like a smuggler, then heats
plastic to cap the gap. My
well is dry. The doc and the
nurse watch me rise from
the chair like a bear stung
by hornets. I mumble,
"Thank you." (I sense
this is rare). I shamble
out into cold sunshine and
have fun chewing on my
stoned, rubbery lip.


hans ostrom 2020

Anyway, Give It a Try

Socrates or the committee
that built the Temple of Delphi
or someone else said, "Know
thyself." The-philosophy.com
calls this "a moral epistemolo-
gical injunction." A search warrant.
Know thyself: Good luck with that.

It's frequently exhausting just
taking care of oneself, family,
friends, work, pets. Then there's
the community and, in theory,
pleasure. True self-knowledge
is like that vacation you never take.

It's also an illusion, one of the
all-time best. I wonder if
Socrates knew what kind of person
goes around advising other
people, "Know thyself."


hans ostrom 2020                  

From a Diary of the Plague Year (4)

The universe occurs
all over again always
now and then. The bustling
biological fuzz on Earth's
crust crackles. Humans
pursue strategies for hiding
from something they can't
see, a maddening minute
enemy. Other forms
of life--birds, fish--
stay busy with their
evolved tasks and necessary
ambitions. I pretend to draw
a box around it all
and call it Today.


hans ostrom 2020

Woman Standing on Brown Stones

brown stones in garden
sunlight look warm. they're
cold. when she stands on
them butterflies swarm & you
look at her bare feet.

who is she? isn't that
the point--to know her
standing there without
knowing name or story?

instead to eat cabbage soup
in a stinking room & dream
of her remote poise, which
unpredictably gives way
to gasping giggles. you

can barely afford your rent
in Brooklyn or St. Petersburg
& you're in "love" with a woman
who doesn't exist in a garden
you tend in your mind. it
might all work out, who knows?


hans ostrom 2020

From a Diary of the Plague Year (3)

Planting yarrow on a hillside--
glimpsed a lone eagle just overhead.
It locked its wings to an updraft,
parked, scanned. I saw its
head tilt toward me. And the eyes.

I won't say I felt hunted. I will
say I stood up and tried to convey
maximum respect. The bright
white of the bird's head flashed
like snow on the Olympic Range,
also visible today--its sharp
peaks bunched together like a
stone chorus. The eagle

coasted in circles--stiff wind
not more than an obedient
servant. Rotating its body
and wings, it was off to complete
rounds, diagnosing the ground.

Predatory, pristine, supreme,
remote, austere: eagle,
above our clotted fretting
down here.


hans ostrom 2020

Lonely? You're Not Alone

If you've been lonely
your whole life, you're
not alone. If you're lonely
even when you're with
other people, join the crowd.

If you sometimes feel
less lonely when you're
alone, raise your hand
(no one will notice).
Confidentially, I'm alone

here writing this now,
which has turned into then
already. Every so often,
for about 30 seconds or so,
I feel lonely. Feel that old
familiar weight of carrying
my consciousness through
time, across space, in language.

These feelings, like a fly,
buzz around the room a few
times before they stop
flying and die.


hans ostrom 2020

Regarding Planted Trees

The trees I've planted in several
locales on this West Coast
have their own lives. They
must manage sap, paint leaves,
then cast them off, then more
leaves, blossoms, plums, apples . . .
Birds and insects consider
these trees to be airports

and resorts for summer avian
tourists. From a window
I can see the sensualist fig
tree spread its branches
voluptuously. It produces
shamelessly extravagant leaves.
Months from now it will let
figs swell, harden, soften
lasciviously. Thank God 
I planted that tree, I murmur
sometimes to myself, quietly.


hans ostrom 2020