My Father Wading Toward Me

My father was from that generation of men

who always wore a hat outside.

After he died, I dreamt repeatedly
that he was wading up a small river
toward me, looking to me for help.

We didn't speak. I feared I was
failing him. He wasn't wearing a hat.

Where was his hat?

hans ostrom 2022

"All Hallows," by Louise Elisabeth Glück

"The Waning Moon," by Percy Bysshe Shelley

"True," by Charles Bukowski

"Love is a Fire that Burns Unseen," by Luís Vaz de Camões

"I, Too," Beneath Your Moon, Almighty Sex," by Edna St. Vincent Millay

 Brief reading/video of poem:

Millay poem/video

Some Fable Days

 Sometimes I fall into a fable state,

human-into-animal. Once I walked heavily
away from my job, wagging my heavy head:
elephant. Cackling minions threw pebbles at my
wrinkled buttocks. I could have turned
and run over them. Didn't. Another day--this:

Somebody was talking at me in front
of a group, apparently scoring clever points.

But I'd lost the topic. Wordish noises
from her mouth might as well have been
wind. I was Cat--dozing in the pride
of my mind, not hungry, a little
sleepy, there and not there. Someone
elbowed me when I started to purr--
and before I hissed.

I've spent many days as a badger, digging,
fretting, rooting around, growling to myself,
making a worried mess of my mental
burrow, getting lots of badger-writing done.
Dog, snake, the classic fox....

I tell you, friend, some fable days are sometimes
what I need--to stay human.

(revision) Hans Ostrom 2022

More Popular Than the Beatles

When you visit an abbey,

remember to ask to meet
the Abbess, not the Abyss.

Maybe Hell is the Abyss Mall:
Over a trillion shops, all of them empty.
Hey, they say Jesus, he came back

from the Abyss. I guess he did.
The Comeback Kid--
more popular than the Beatles, for sure.

hans ostrom 2022

Well, Languages?

well, languages, you surround

the world as seas and oceans do,

so where will you take your poets today,
as they get into their homemade boats,

each anchored in a private bay? they will
sail and row into  your currents, tides, and storms.

languages, let them find the words they need
before they go back to their shores and take

what words they found, arrange and rearrange
them to compose the poems made out of them,
                                                  made out of you.

hans ostrom 2022

Her

slightly crooked grin

bright eyes wise

radar for lies
a way of
moving with/under
well chosen clothes

hans ostrom 2022

Entrepreneur

Think of this poem as a new business.

Welcome! How may I help you?

We're running a special sale
on images, including a swollen
big toe, the variegated fur of a
domestic cat, and a freckle
on a woman's lower back. Will
that be cash or credit?

Alas, this business fails
to turn a profit. Isn't that
just like poetry? --Always
thinking of itself and not
the bottom line. What

was Andrew Carnegie's
favorite poem?... Oh, dear:
Thugs sent by this poem's
venture-capital investors
have arrived. (I lied to them,
like a poet.) They want
their money back, plus
the vig. We must escape.
Thank you for your business!
Let's meet up later in a bar--

a bar. Now there's a real
business: trading vessels
of distilled and brewed liquids
for cash, listening to failed
entrepreneurs--and poets
of every kind--tell their woebegotten
tales, wiping the gleaming
dark bar clean. "Last call!"

hans ostrom 2022

Ashes, Ashes, After All

I'm made of ashes,

after all. After all.

If my spirit hangs around
after the party, Life,
it will visit creeks
and forests--and bookstores,
if any should remain.

It will spend time, secretly,
with birds and women.
It will listen to old tales
told by foxes and herons,
horses, wildcats, turtles.

Always cold, it will long
for the heat and the light of the fire.

For after all, I am made of ashes.
I am made of ashes after all.

Fulfillment

 fulfillment

    full feel met
fundamentally filled intent
  not fulfilled until
under moon you two met

one full moment sent
    one filled moment's scent
one full feel you meant
    one too soon full feel

one moonlit dune until
    one due moment, too,
you two duly felt
    loved true
              to
fulfillment

hans ostrom 2022