Libraries seem more important than ever in these anti-intellectual, anti-science times. Here's a short tribute-poem to them by Philip Larkin--reading/video:
Sunday, September 20, 2020
Saturday, September 19, 2020
Friday, September 18, 2020
"Step Out Onto the Planet," by Lew Welch
A short poem by Beat writer Lew Welch. Welch (1926-1971) was an important poet and teacher in the San Francisco Renaissance/Beat Movement. For a time, he functioned as the step-father of the lad who would adopt the performer's name, Huey Lewis. Welch is presumed to have committed suicide on May 26, 1971, in the Sierra Nevada. His body has never been found. City Lights Books published his Collected Poems (Ring of Bone) in 2012, with an afterword by Gary Snyder, who was Welch's roommate at Reed College. Reading/video:
What the Hell is Going On Around Here?
What the hell is going on? What
is this recklessness? Leaders
and followers, people we knew,
they see forests burning and laugh,
see murder and justify it, see
common sense and start screaming
and rolling around on the floor
like Hitler and vomit
deranged racist speech.
They say it's their civil right
to sneeze viral mucous in my face.
They say they're all about the
White Race, which--this just in--
doesn't exist. We're all humans.
One species. Google it.
Is it a pill? Propaganda?
What makes them insanely
lethal and lethally insane?
A drug? Hypnosis? A hustler
with a blond barge atop his head?
A yearning for a violent absolute?
(I refer my colleague to the comment
about Hitler I made moments ago.)
What is this burning of science
at the stake? This goddamn
making shit up and trying to
wing it when knowledge can
put things right? This living
in White basements and thinking
that they're the whole world?
What the hell is going on around here?
It's a drunken parade with guns, a pageant
of stupidity, a carnival of hatred.
Grow up, wash your hands but
don't wash your hands like Pilate,
pretend the facts are true: a mask
is good for me and you. Broaden
your horizons. Read some books.
Listen to Duke Ellington. Smash
your shrunken-head view
of a fantasy America. Stop
fearing people you don't know.
Leave the cult. Listen to your children.
Settle the fuck down. What the hell!
What the hell is going on around here?
hans ostrom 2020
Wednesday, September 16, 2020
"Chance Meetings," by Conrad Aiken
A reading/video of a poem by Conrad Aiken, American poet who won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award:
"Lines Written at the Grave of Alexandre Dumas," by Gwendolyn Bennett
Harlem Renaissance writer Gwendolyn Bennett wrote this poem about the great adventure-novelist Alexandre Dumas (The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, etc.), whose father was French and whose mother was African--and a former slave:
Goat Island
On that island wild goats
climb cliffs. Women
govern the place, living
mostly in the mountains.
It is a matriarchy,
which, based on reason
and evidence, advises
the citizenry, including men,
what to do. I've sent for a
brochure. I'm not sure
if I want to apply to live
there. But I'm a man,
and I don't mind being
directed by experts,
especially if they're women.
Apparently the fishing
is good, there's a solid
poetic tradition, and live
music thrives. I'll let you
know what happens with
me and Goat Island.
hans ostrom 2020
Tuesday, September 15, 2020
From a Diary of the Plague Year (19)
We're double-bound to home
today. There is the viral reason,
and now smoke
from the Great Western American
Fire of 2020 creams air.
Airborne ash makes
the sun look like the moon.
Birds do their best to eat
out there, but there are
no bugs in that air.
I'm calm. I stare.
I'd like to go into exile.
But where? Nobody
wants to see Americans now,
not even Americans.
hans ostrom 2020
Humid
Do me a favor,
says weather,
and carry this anvil
made of steam
around with you today:
okay?
Creeks flow
off my skin,
turning shirts
into wetlands.
After work, napping
in feverish circumstances,
I dream of alligators
belching thunder.
Humidity and feet,
I think, make for a fine
Stilton stink. With
sour thoughts,
I wait for cloud-towers
to collapse into rain:
one wet defeats another.
hans ostrom 2020
Olfactory: A Poem of Odors
(in other words, it stinks)
asphalt, freshly wet
chocolate
vanilla
musty villa
sawdust
red rust
perfume
sea spume
diesel oil
black soil
cardamom
dark rum
sweat, also
known as perspiration
irrigation
tomato, just picked--
sauce, garlic-ed
wet dog
thick fog
cinnamon
saffron bun
laundry hung in sun
roasted turkey, done
pickling brine
iodine
shampooed hair
alpine air
hills of garbage
boiled cabbage
rosemary
raspberry
red rose
painted toes
horse stall
snow fall
cedar chest
lemon
zest.
hans ostrom 2010/2020
Monday, September 14, 2020
"Rain," by Charles Bukowski
Reading/video of a poem by Charles Bukowski, one of his classical music ones:
Saturday, September 12, 2020
"The Sloth," by Theodore Roethke
Poem by the legendary University of Washington poetry teacher--and the highly successful poet--Theodore Roethke (1908-1963). It's about the animal, not the sin or lifestyle choice. Reading/video:
Friday, September 11, 2020
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