Friday, March 11, 2022

it seems you fainted

you felt yourself going,
which might describe life.
or death. a wobble & brain-light
switched off. started to crouch,

hoping to . . .
then . . . ?  you woke
slowly, with such calm,

like dawn in fog,
into a mild dream, 
a viscous stream-creek.
imagined you were

in bed--no: a table leg,
cords of some kind. so,
you got up: a fiction.

woke again.
cold ceramic under your
neck. will, a boss,
ordered you to get

up. wide-stanced, you
lurched toward a factual
bed, found it, lay down.

slept, woke to a person
telling you, "your forehead's
bleeding." you wanted
some blood to  trickle

in your mouth--a child's
thought chugging
by in awareness

like a slow catfish in 
a warm honey pond. a
chat ensued. and
old technology--

blood pressure cuff,
flashlight in eyes. fingers
on wrist to receive telegraph

message. a tuning in to your
heartbeat as if it were
espionage radio. blood
cleaned away, gauze

like a dry loveless kiss.
a diagnosis of low blood
pressure, a kind of bad

weather, and dehydration,
a kind of bad climate. water.
back to sleep, no dreams
      allowed. fainting, what a thing. 


hans ostrom 2022

Tuesday, March 8, 2022

Useless Despair

While a dictator's second-best bombs
blasted people in Kjiv, I
shopped for groceries
not far from a massive volcano
wrapped in snow like an ermine-coated
queen with a molten temper. 

Privileged beyond measure,
I gulped big  breaths of iced air,
indulged in despair, uselessly
fretted for fellow humans,
imperfect lovely people 
a half a planet away. 

How evil finds a way 
to fill little rage-addicted men
like pus until they burst
in a death riot, I can't say.

Why so many shocked children
and their parents have to die
before such a small box of rot
finally dies from his own mad
virus, I can't know. So:

I looked into a set gray sky
in some region named
the Pacific Northwest,
couldn't cry, took my sad 
bags into a store and pushed
a little wheeled cage around aisles. 


hans ostrom 2022


Monday, February 21, 2022

In Praise of Plodding

I don't sing the praises
of plodding. I mumble them.

Praise for slow striders
and taciturn toilers.

For persons who lay gray
mortar for red bricks.

Who plow fields for
food-to-be, who teach

students who arrive 
foggy from hunger or

adolescent hormones.
Who nurse the ill, who

must listen and endure in
their jobs to the squawk, squeak,

shriek of opinions. I
celebrate ones who watch

where they're going, who
produce the correct tool

at the proper time. Who follow
facts like meandering creeks

until a decisive lake comes
into view. Humanity seems

always in need of the prepared
and careful,  the appropriately shod,

citizens scrubbed of narcissism.
Thank you, plodders. Steady on.


hans ostrom 2022

Sunday, February 20, 2022

Creeks

where seas start:

springs leak & snow swoons 
under sun & soon trickles
become inklings of headwaters

off spiked hills 
spasms of water splash, crash,
& make thin loud brash nervous
streams skating over slick slate.

off peaks proper creeks
leap in white waterfalls,
smash into crescendo pools,
lounge awhile,
then amble, then race & riffle
around boulders til they fall
again            listen:

there's a jazzy rhythm 
to high country creeks,
syncopation of gurgle,
trickle, rush, splash, & knock

see shadow and sun, eddies
and pebbled edges, deep
black pools, glassy sheets
under which fish shadows dart.

carved into loamy meadows
and farmland, catfish creeks
won't be rushed (hush, now),
quietly they tread over 
fine silt floors.

desert dry creeks--
ghostly impressions,
molds of pool & streambed
asking for water. lizards
scribble graffiti on 
parched sand. but then
sky attacks one day 
&  the memory of water
comes roaring back

creeks give themselves 
over to rivers that give
themselves over to bigger
flows & who knows?
maybe the big river can't
resist a coast & runs to a 
bay, to a sea, where
all the banks of rivers vanish
& all creeks sing together.


hans ostrom 2022

Monday, February 14, 2022

Far Away Sponges

Under Antarctic ice,
portly white sponges 
filter frozen secrets.

Fifteen thousand years
old, they look like huge
flabby white jars.

Like bears and us,
they are omnivorous.
Landlords of a sort,

they host crustaceans
and worms and never
charge rent or evict.

Generous, they donate
bits of themselves 
to feed sea stars.

Like soft boulders
or plump packages of time
mailed from the moon,

they fluctuate forever.
Some call all them giant 
volcano sponges, others

Anoxycalyx joubini:
mere syllables, bubbles
bursting in viscous salt

currents. It's said you can
dive down and see them. 
Please don't. A few photos

suffice, and their niche is
in no need of us. For sponges
are sisters of all other animals. 



hans ostrom

Friday, February 11, 2022

And All the Ships at Sea

Ships groan. Moan. Even shimmering
yachts know, deep in their blueprints,
they shouldn't be at sea. Commerce
and war disagree. The sea is ours!

they cry--like drunken sailors
on shore leave or rabid dictators
with shrinking brains. Ships

at permanent anchor--mothballed:
uncommanded, they slightly sway,
serene in their bay. At night, 

ghosts howl in bones of the hulls,
conjuring nightmares of reefs,
hurricanes, missiles, and mad captains. 


hans ostrom 2022

Saturday, February 5, 2022

Arguments

Gritty wind argues
with trees. New green
leaves laugh back.

A black headland
refutes a pounding sea,
which relents, then rides

again at midnight,
pale wave-tips glowing
in moonlight. We fight

with our home the planet.
If we win, we lose.


hans ostrom 2022

The Wisdom Tree

I went to find 
the Wisdom Tree.
Someone had 
chopped it down--
and all the trees
around it, down, down. 



hans ostrom 2022

Sunday, January 30, 2022

The Angel of Listening

A group's talking, many
voices interlaced,
a lattice-work of gab--

then all talk suddenly 
stops, as if timed: it's
said "an angel just passed

over," and people laugh,
and then buzzing chat
begins again, builds. Yes:

the Angel of Listening. An
angel of thought, ego retracted
like a cat's claw, minds open

like a veranda on a cottage
near a warm sea. If you can,
come by here more often, Angel.

Help us quiet down, and listen,
and let good thoughts, fresh
ideas, breeze in to mix with

our thinking, refurbish knowing. 


hans ostrom 2022

Monday, January 10, 2022

July: North Yuba River

on the North Yuba River
after wheeling mortar
& carrying rocks all day.

wading, casting a fly--
an old tippet coachman
pattern: white goose

wings, peacock feather
body, black-and-orange
tail. rainbow fly for

rainbow trout. canyon getting
blue. your work-shirt
stinks fine, same for

trout-slimed creel. 
lungs of the canyon
draw air past pines

and oaks. the current
knocks against your
legs like a baby goat.

rush of life never never

stops. here you can pause,
know sufficient peace
and privilege in your life.

plenty of fish in the creel--
maybe breakfast tomorrow.
you stay knee-deep in the flow

for the cool, for the quiet
before the day's door 
closes. now in shadow,

bugs hatch and swarm
biblically. trout leap
in jubilee. reel it in.

stick the fly in cork.
listen. riverside, open
and clean the fish, leave

guts for raccoons. climb
up and out, slipping on shale,
grunting. finally up, winded,

standing next to Highway
49's warm asphalt. no cars
now. tourists in the campground,

town people home or at 
the bar. walk in soaked
jeans and boots up to

the old battered car. 
creel in the trunk. grunt
getting in. start her up.

home in less than a mile.
July mountain air sweet
after heat of day. thanks. 


hans ostrom 2022

Sunday, December 19, 2021

Awkward Blues

Do you have
those awkward blues, 
mixing up your
p's and q's?
Lurching in your
scuffed up shoes?

Awkward's not a
mode you choose.
You'd like to take
those social cues,
say right things,
make smooth moves. 

You: born off-beat,
that's all. 
Rather angular,
too short or tall.
More comfortable
against a wall.

Too often, too,
you speak what rises
to your mind--
ignite surprises.
Or go quiet, as
shy advises.

Stride, roll your path,
win and lose.
So you're clumsy:
that's not news.
Croak your own tune,
those awkward blues. 


hans ostrom 2021

Films About Poets

 Reposting one from a while back.


One problem with trying to make a dramatic feature film about poets is that most of the drama in a poet's life occurs in his or her head. A second problem, flowing out of the first, is that the film-makers then try to compensate by focusing on sordid details or on cliche aspects of the alleged "poet's life," such as drinking alcohol, being wild, yadda yadda. A third problem is that, probably, no one should try to "dramatize" the writing process. All of that said, here is a list of movies about poets, pretty much in the order they occurred to me, although I do begin with my favorite:


1. Stevie (1978) It presents her life and doesn't try too hard to dramatize poetry and poets.

2. Priest of Love (1981) About D.H. Lawrence. Not bad. Ava Gardner has a role.

3. The Edge of Love (2008) About Dylan Thomas. Falls into some of the traps mentioned above.

4. Dead Poets Society (1989). A favorite of many. More about poetry and teaching than poets. I liked it all right.

5. Pandaemonium (2000)About Wordsworth and other British Romantic poets. The scenes that try to portray Wordsworth composing are painful to watch. The stuff about literary politics and Wordsworth's ego is good.

6. Beat (2000). Focuses mainly on Burroughs. It's pretty good.

7. Looking for Langston (1988) Quasi-documentary stressing Hughes's sexuality. A fine film--but it really is only about one aspect of Hughes's life, alas.

8. Total Eclipse (1995) Concerning Rimbaud and Verlaine. Very good. With Dicaprio.

9. Dr. Zhivago (1965). Of course, this movie about a lot besides poetry, but the main character is a poet, after all.

10. Beautiful Dreamers (1990). This is the one among the 10 I haven't seen, but it looks intriguing. It's about Walt Whitman. Not great reviews on IMDB, alas.

Friday, November 19, 2021

Inventory after Flood

Last night the river flooded
and hauled away my answers.
I should not have stacked them
so near the bank. I'm left 

with questions stored
in small dry places, bowed
shelves, bitter boxes. So far
the roof is holding.

Rain slaps and pummels
it in surges. I start
to unpack questions.
My smashed answers

roll and twist toward
a delta or a dam or just
rocks on the way. Today
I fret and squirm and

say What are they for?
What are they for? 
This only adds to a stuffed
frustrating inventory. 


hans ostrom 2021