Lane Change

Late night in a Central Valley

California city, where farm air

sniffs neon. Blacktop, moist after

rain, gleams. Phosphorescent lamps

and traffic signals hang in cheery

gloom. Everybody's left the party.

I drift the silver-green Chevy

over to a lane for 

       LEFT OR U TURN ONLY and

stop.

A Ford rolls up in another lane,

obeys a red light, engine grumbling

in that Ford way. (This happened

long ago, when people befriended cars

and trucks.) I see the mouth

of the driver, a young woman, singing

the song my radio's singing. (We used

car radios then.) She turns her head

and, singing, smiles through two windows,

turns back and sees

        GREEN

and off with an automatic-transmission

(such things mattered then)

start goes her gunned Mustang

(me in my Camaro), wheels spitting

water and grit--gone. Just gone. Now

I sing the song. It liked her 

better. I murder it. The

         RED

light winks into a green arrow.

How lovely, an Imagist poem. 

Awake, the Camaro lurches,

goes through engine-crescendos

as I manage gas pedal brake pedal

clutch pedal stick-shift steering & a certain

sad projection of Camaro cool . . .

. . . to follow the Ford would have

been just plain wrong. "On a number

of levels," as the academics (I was 

trying to become one) used to say

in that former farm-town that grows

research. Learning her name, hearing

her voice in talk and song, inducing

her laughter--yes, a belly laugh--. . .

not wrong. Not possible. I turn

not around but sufficiently LEFT

as never to see the Ford the woman

again, at least according to my poet's

sense of statistical probability (everyone

but me carried a thick calculator then).

Sad and lonely, I stride from car

to bad buggy bungalow door and say

No not sad and lonely but alive and

the washed air smells fine and I might

have a glass of red wine.

hans ostrom circa 1975/2021

She Returns to the Farm

          (with memories of Tom Rickman)

It is raining. There are apples.

It is. There are. Apples, rain, mud,

land. Land not built on. Yet. At 

night, such quiet, much quiet,

too much . . . .

The reckless ones died early.

The cautious ones grew old and died.

The orchard grew into a farm, 

which grew into an operation. 

Thus orchard, a young grafted

tree,  became a mature

producer. Which became an

autonomous hybrid banyan/apple

tree walking around the place,

planting itself. She

does/doesn't understand. 

It is raining. There are apples.

The money is good. She can't stay. 

hans ostrom 2021

Jealous Desert

walking in a desert

looking for, smelling for,

water, honey, and home--

the desert is home--

look, there's a bone

that once was part

of one who walked

here: here goes on

as it went even when

water covered it.

walking the desert.

it is jealous of water. 

hans ostrom 2021

Ancestry

 1

My name, pattern of nucleic

acids, and documentation become

a dried leaf glued to

a petrified tree in a fractal forest.

2

The earlier the photograph,

the harder the faces, the darker

the clothes. Work, grief, God,

and fear sculpted these faces. 

3

One cannot behold the soupy

sea of ancestry and still cling

to racism and sad notions

of superiority. A trillion 

accidents set against social

calamity--not "bloodlines"--

birthed each of us. Every one

of us wailed when air first

thumped us in the lungs.

4

Everybody's common. The 

rest is a confidence game.

5

A distant relation died 

attacking a castle. He's buried

in digitized public records.

Genealogists visit his grave.

It's nothing personal. 

6

I have to override the program,

which tells me a relation was 

too young to be a mother. That's 

rape for you. 

7

Genealogy's a pageant of 

folly, a carnival of silence, an

absurdity of great meaning, 

a permanent promise of connection.

8

Sooner or later, our names

become unintended jokes.

9

People travel and travel and

travel. Meanwhile, clever ones

convince them that dreams of

belonging to a special group

are real. Nation, tribe, empire--

that sort of thing. 

10

Humanity is composed 

of women and certain

hangers on. 

11

We're all cousins.

12

On average, each extended

family includes one genealogist 

who insists on boring everyone

with dates, places, and photos. 

In my family, I am he. 

Mountain Saloon

Darkness in daylight and a sweet

whiskey smell said Hey

to six-year-old me when

my Aunt Nevada opened the door

to the Buckhorn saloon. I

registered a glowing brass

pipe running the length

of a dark varnished bar,

down where feet are. 

An altar of bottles--brown,

clear, green--gathered itself

around a long mirror.

An an antlered deer's head

eyed me. Aunt went back

to get broom, bucket, and mop.

She and Uncle owned the bar. 

After dinner, my dad freshly

showered would fall asleep 

in a chair before going to the

second job: pouring drinks

at this place. Tending bar. 

Caves, tombs, hideouts, 

temples, chapels, dens of

equity, harbors, imagined

carnivals of sex and power:

later I'd learn what dark bars

could become--neon glowing

outside, light in darkness. 

hans ostrom 2021

Competition

competition was a custom

systems craved. you caved

to the carnival of conflict.

sometimes. not your preference.

so now you lean against

an old black oak and watch

them in their ruddy scrums

out there, the promise of glory

palmed long ago by a hustler

who's already out of town. 

hans ostrom 2021

Summer of 2021

Petroleum nightmares sizzle

and burst on smoking sidewalks.

Hurricanes scream at concussed 

cities. Snowflakes fall backward

up to fried skies. Whole forests

collapse into ash, and white zombies

run for Congress, opposing 

knowledge and love. 

It's been quite the summer

so far. To be or not to be

cooked by our dear atmosphere:

that's not the question, but it will

suffice. Mobs chase scientists

across deserts strewn with 

condominium rubble. Coyotes 

watch and laugh. Down the years,

they've smelled our madness.

We condition the air. 

hans ostrom 2021

Ancient Overlap

two crows on a line

watched a man work--

he dug, shoveled, raked.

disinterested as scientists,

the birds sat still, sometimes

taking  mental notes

to add to vast crow knowledge

of their neighbors. sometimes

they lifted a wing and beaked

mites off feathers. now

the man took a break, drank

water, ate a sandwich, tossed

bits of bread on the ground.

the birds dropped softly,

feathered shadows. they 

grabbed a quick lunch, took

their field notes back to the lab

made of sticks. humans,

crows. an ancient overlap

of societies. a relationship. 

hans ostrom 2021

Envy Isn't Good

So nobody's heard your song

yet. It's still a song. When envy

comes to town, trees droop,

crops fail, children in shops

wail for no reason, and traffic

boils. Surprise: you're alive.

And your oldest neighbor

sits in a chair outside, drinks

iced tea, sighs, feels free.

hans ostrom 2021

Detectives

 (homage to Rex Stout and Georges Simenon)

Crime disrespects. It exploits

routine. It is impolite, time-

consuming, and distracting.

Grudgingly, the good detective

identifies those who

should have known better,

most especially the entitled.

Intelligent cooking; sufficient

rest; optional, moderate

consumption of alcohol and

tobacco; solitude; reflection—

these are worth preserving,

even if it means working

for a living, extracting

folly and vice from the milieu.

Hence Jules Maigret and Nero Wolfe,

who would rather be left

alone but are drawn into prose

by their creators, into frays by

fate, necessity, duty. Efficient

plots spring from good manners.

Whatever takes one away from

reading, dining, conversation,

solitude, repose, or—however modest

it may be-one’s enclave must be criminal.

Good manners and good detection

don’t belong to social class but

come from a certain strength of mind.

If only everyone would think things through.

Everyone doesn’t; therefore, detection

is called for, is restoration of balances, is

a bother to be concluded quickly.

hans ostrom 1999-2021

Writer's Sky

a small moleskin notebook

exhumed itself

from a mound of scribbling--

the soft cover sky blue--

except with lavender 

lurking, teasing through.

it reminded scribbler me

of a summer Sierra Nevada

sky on certain days (no

days are certain): cloudless--

a sky that seemed too

blue and weirdly made me

yearn prospectively, wanting

never to leave some vague

paradise in my mind--

known, never visited. 

I recall staring as if sky

were painted like a vast ceiling

above pine trees. and then, yes,

I dropped the gaze, moved on to work

for wages--dust and heat--

pounding nails, digging dirt,

wheeling mortar; & after work

sleeping off a migraine 

in a dark basement,

getting up, sweat dried to shirt,

& scratching in a notebook. 

hans ostrom 2021

Forest Floor

forested canyon, sierra

nevada--we walked

among conifer columns

standing in living lithe

patience. our booted feet

landed quietly on annual

layers of pine needles,

each level a different color

of time, light tan on top,

and a darkening all the way

down to black fusion 

with soil, reabsorption--

perhaps a resurrection 

with water up, back up into

tree through root and cambrium,

bough, cone, seed, pollen--

or needle again, shaking

green in wind, staying

still in snow. 

hans ostrom 2021

House Sparrows in June

house sparrow--chest

dusted rose--lands on a line,

faces west, sings a languid,

bluesy thing, a call, a tune,

a testimony,

also a satire of communicating

wires and the rest of our mess.

a second sparrow lands--

birds beside themselves. 

more singing, sewed

together as dusk grows

lemony, then orange.

the first bird stops

singing and grooms

the second: time

soon to nest, close

up eyes, rest singing

throat and tongue--

one more day

one more day gone. 

hans ostrom 2021