Wanting Nothing Is Impossible

 At the Art Institute, I saw someone

I'd met professionally a while back.

We talked easily enough.  I offered

to buy us something to eat, museum café.

She accepted. Younger than I, she'd

lived a lot already.  I sensed she was

broke— nothing obvious, just intuition.

With coffee and food, we talked

more.  I said I was

glad we had run into each other.

It was true.  Happenstance

had pleased me.  Her

face changed.  Maybe apparitions 

of men she’d known had  appeared

around the table.  Maybe she couldn’t

recall a single social interaction

in which someone but especially

men had not seemed

to want too much from her.

I sensed she was broke.  I saw she

thought she saw me  wanting something.

It’s true.  I wanted her to finish her

coffee and say, “Nice to see you,”

and leave.  I wanted to say,

 

“Nice to see you,” and leave.

We said phrases like that.  Her

face kept its wariness.   Her

experience had put her on alert.

We left the café and parted.

Can the pronoun “he” ever

want nothing from the pronoun “her”?

Only in theory.  My acquaintance

did not live in theory.  Her life

 was composed of constant practice.

Insistent apparitions had sat at table.

I sensed she was broke.  Now I hope

that she’s not broke, that she’s

better and well. Well, when I think

of her that day, I feel  briefly sad for

simple social moves quickly

complex in Chicago, not to mention

everywhere.  I am a ghost at

a café table in the Art Institute

looking at her guarded face.  I want

to say, “I don’t want anything.  Just

enjoy the coffee, the food, the rest.”

Her face says, “If you say that,

then you do want something.  You

want me to believe you, and believe the rest.”

hans ostrom 1990/2021

Sunshine and Shadow

 "Surely there was a time I might have trod

The sunlit heights . . ." --Oscar Wilde, "Helas"

One day you're running in sunshine,

the next just walking in it, 

a little weary. The day after that,

you're walking in shade,

more tired still. And the next:

sitting in shadows. Then, well,

you become a shadow. People

come running and strolling by

in bright light. They glance your way

and don't see anything.

hans ostrom 2021

Must We Fall in Love?

Eve and colleague Adam

tripped over an apple and fell.

A snake smirked. I myself

have fallen in love

after stumbling over

a load of infatuation,

or bumbling through

a course of social

obstacles: slapstick

Casanova. This falling

in love sounds so fateful,

injurious, actionable--

beset by heartfelt

soreness, bruised feelings,

ego deflation. We're liable

to dislike it. The idea of love

sells tickets and products

and rosy futures: thus are

we encouraged to take

risks, show caution the door.

Well, we might think of

leaning in love, after a

light repast and several

laughs. Or rolling in love,

weaving like in-line

skaters near the beach,

glad and balanced.

Yes I know it's counter-

cultural, but what about a

steady climb into love?

One foot after another?

No, I guess not. Passion's

ever the fashion. Good luck.

hans ostrom 2021

What the Shadow Cat Said

Sunlight hits a narrow

bookshelf, shapes

a perfect cat shadow--

ears and legs and all.

This cat doesn't move.

Its assumed eyes stare.

Its supposed mouth opens

to accuse perception

of being little more

than a collage of simulations,

reactions to effects, habits

of getting it wrong. 

And who am I, 

watching the wall,

behind the books, to

contradict a shadow cat?

hans ostrom 2021

And Hope for the Best

okay, I never starved

and I was white not black

in America

but I've been alarmed

ever since I learned

life ends with death.

then came pageants

of cruelty,

the always prospect

of atomic 

annihilation, and

white kids groomed

by their stupid

parents to hate black

kids--for starters;

a head-on collision

with environmental

doom, sadists

in the workplace.

okay, I've had it good--

for starters; but

still, no wonder

I'm jumpy, reclusive,

bookish, and not

just tired but

existentially weary;

I'm talking old

dog tired. no bombs,

missiles, store

massacres, floods,

fires, new plagues,

attacks on black friends

locally today, so

okay, call it good,

do something for someone,

then grab a nap

and hope for the best

and hope for the best

and hope for the best.

hans ostrom

Strange Feeling

(after listening to Duke Ellington's

"Strange Feeling")

Half the people

who ever insulted

me are dead.

That makes me

feel strange for ever

caring what they said.

hans ostrom 2021

Short Ideas

 

at work she endured

petty tyrants with

pinched faces. back

home, her young son

said, "Walt Disney had a
lot of short ideas."

She laughed and images
of those faces
surely faded.

hans ostrom 2021

The Skipper

on a fishing boat

all day, you feel time
dissolve in water.

offbeat swells shrug
the craft. sun glare
stuns. you sense

the sea's in touch
with forever,
a distant cousin.

headed back to port,
you try to remind
yourself you're you.

gulls shriek, nobody
talks, land magnets
the boat close.

wobbly on a dock,
you again accept
your position: the

skipper of your life.

hans ostrom 2021

© right now      

Hobbies?

When English, just coltish,

was trotting around medieval isles,

a hoby was a small, busy horse

that went nowhere. Ah, then

came the hobbyhorse, a child's

plaything, wicker or wood.

Another horse that went nowhere--

and anywhere in the kid's mind.

Look: we need more hobbies,

as we wait for the revolution

we want or dread. Hobbies 

instead of screeching hateful

things, badgering strangers,

firing guns, or guzzling swill

brewed by cults and hustlers.

Yep, carve wood, stitch lace,

raise ancient cars from the tomb

of rust, brood over chess, thump

guitars or keyboards, water

family trees, horde shoe-horns.

More stuff we do should go 

nowhere like a hoby. There's

nowhere to go anyway. We're

just here, Earth. Keep it tidy,

settle in, find something pleasant

about which to obsess

like that aunt of yours who

lived in a hive of Elvisiana.

In your hobby hide from

your worst self, advertisers,

and those who wish no one well. 

hans ostrom 2021

Sometimes You Meet a Very Good Tree

A palm tree, a bit taller than a person:

thick brown-gray hair covers its

trunk, coarse as a horse's mane,

and bark grows in widely spaced

 pieces that curve up and out

in baroque arcs. The trunk is

narrow at the hips, wide at

the chest--like a torch: and it

flames with green fronds. 

Yes, I'm standing there,

rubbing palm hair between

my fingers, starring up,

smiling. This is a tree 

on a mission to amuse

itself. And me. 

hans ostrom 2021

Velton Stopped Cheering

(revised)

Velton stopped cheering

at football games

and football

matches when he realized

that no one heard him

above the noise

and so a stadium of silence

rose in his mind

a space that applauded

his separateness, his

sense of Velton himself

sitting, standing, in a crowd,

but not of the crowd,

no not of the crowd. 

hans ostrom 2021

Old Man, I'm Talking to You

 [revised a bit]

Old man, I'm talking to you. I am you: 

I didn't used to be, no--I used to fly past

on a train. You'd be sitting on a bench

at the station--gray eyes, gray sweater,

a blur of inert age. And I? Well, I

was all tendon-taut, unfraught, lithe,

and smug with youth. Uncouth. I was

on my way to . . . to here, as

it happened, and it's happened.

I'm sitting, situated at the station now,

too, talking to you, old man. Here

comes the rain. Here comes a train.

hans ostrom 2013/2021

All Electric Poem

This poem used to sound

like a gargling dinosaur,

for it ran on petrol. Now

it's all electric and whirs

like an old cat's throat.

My friend rode with me--

she said, "You know, 

the poetry rush hours

will soon go quiet, will

slither soundlessly along

like traffic pythons."

Home now. I've plugged

in the poem to solar

power. It's sipping electrons,

blithely ignorant of

Daytona, of Monaco. 

hans ostrom 2021