"if there are any heavens," by e.e. cummings

Old Funk Band

 The Ohio Players, Jazz Alley, Seattle, 10/2022

The first beat hits
like a boulder dropped on a roof.
Drums and bass hammer hard &
velvet vines of joy entwine from there.

Everything sizzles, black and bubbling--
horns, guitar, keyboards. This

is music for community, to get bodies
up & dancing and minds up to float
above their troubles. Webs of
call-and-response spread. At

least three of these Black men
have been brewing this elixir for 50 years.
The small wizened man
at one keyboard, baseball cap
set back, is the chieftain
of arrangement. Funk, hot

and cool, climbed the highest
mountain of rhythm-and-blues.
Apotheosis, mof-fo. From there,
pop music settled in soft digital foothills,
calibrating robot beats, dismissing
musicians, hiring impresarios
of turntables and knobs. Played

live, funk draws blood from all
the way back to Africa, across
oceans painted by blood-red
moons, up through islands
and land-masses into New Orleans,
then up the rivers to industrial
Black cities. Funk stomps

on evil as it dances. It turns-
on lovers. Funk screams
sweetly, jokes, smiles, winks, punches
in syncopation like Muhammad Ali,
lays out opponents--boredom,
worry, snobbery. Funk

will find a way to turn you into
a dancing fool--the best kind--
even if you just sit there and on the floor
inside your head, roll your
hips, shake your head, raise
your hands, laugh and smile,
hold that other body with you there,
and praise the big-little lord called Life.

hans ostrom 2022

Rhiannon Giddens, American Tune (with altered “Mayflower” verse by P. Si...

"Have Me," by Carl Sandburg

"The Owls," by Charles Baudelaire

Pacific Flyway

Last night, 165, 000 birds

flew over this city. Their highway
of air's called The Pacific Flyway.

Ceaseless wings working,
black eyes shining, uncanny
navigation sending signals....

These birds from various species
have no clue how brave they are,
do not have our concept, courage.

They just do what they must do
while we count and measure
in homes and leisure down here.

A few of these birds stopped by
in our garden this Spring & Summer.
Sampled water, suet, seeds, bugs; rested,

sang--maybe picked up grass and twigs
for the summer home. This thought
brings warmth, like holding briefly

in a cupped hand a bird before it flies.

hans ostrom

For 6

The "bachelor's" degree in college
springs from the Medieval baccalarius,
I'm told--someone low on the feudal
food-chain. After I earned it, I thought
I might go to law school, but my score
on the law-school admission exam was...
666. I took this as a revelation that law
might make me evil. So I entered
the hell of getting a doctorate in English.

I always thought of 6 as a friendly number--
not so edgy as 5, less slick than 7, more droll
than 4 or 8. I developed intuitive
relationships with numbers and days
of the week, nothing to do with math
or work. I hate gambling on any day.
To me it denotes "losing," and
casinos are beastly.

Whoever wrote the Book of Revelations:
a little manic, maybe? Too many numbers
for me, and horsemen and The Beast,
seals, and the anti-Christ: exhausting. Led
to too many bad horror movies (but to be
fair, also Bergman's The Seventh Seal,
which I view primarily as a comedy).

As to the Anti-Christ: too many suspects,
past and present.

6, I love you, Baby, more than three times.

hans ostrom 2022

In Broad Daylight

 Ancient sun, new day: mid-morning,

I'm about to get in my car with a cup
of coffee, big bright parking lot, when a man
walks up--his clothes and twitchy affect
suggesting meth. Asks if I can help his friend
"jump" his battery. "Where?" "Just over there--
he's beating on his car." As I myself

have struck a stubborn car a time or two,
I put aside fear of getting mugged,
drive over. The friend's got is drumsticks out,
playing them on metal under the raised hood.
Out of many front teeth, he's got just one hanging:
meth. Starvation-lean, some jail tats. The two

are living in the small car with a black dog.
We fiddle and fuss and finally get his car
started. The dog barks. Rolling up
the jumper-cables, he says, "Thanks &
god-bless. Nobody would help, nobody.
I mean, I get why they're leery of us,
but broad daylight, & all these people
around? C'mon. It makes you wonder
about the human race."

hans ostrom 2022

For 7

(some notes follow the poem)

Seven looks so elegant in
Its two-line design.
Seven Sisters constellation:
Closest one to Earth.

We love Seven oh so much
When we're naming things
Such as mountains, soda pop,
Samurai and Cowboys, cliffs.

Seven's such a fulcrum age,
Social awareness grows, though
Innocence abides. It's a famous
Lucky number, though I'm not sure

Why. Oh, maybe God threw dice that
Day, betting with himself on
His creation.... Seventh son of
Seventh son--turn numbers into
Myths. And seven, being slick and
Prime, does have a certain swag.
Miller was the man who wrote in
Nineteen fifty six that it was more than co-

Incidence that seven seemed ubiquitous.
Mathematician Bellos, twenty-14, said he could
Prove that seven was the most popular of
Numbers worldwide. My friends the crows can

Count to six, thus leave respect to Seven:
Yes. Religions several have divided Heaven in-
To seven. Leave it to us to turn One Heaven into
Condominiums. I wish you luck this 7th day.

notes: George Miller, "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information." Psychology Review, 1956. Alex Bellos, The Grapes of Math: How Life Reflects Numbers and Numbers Reflect Life, 2014.  "Counting Abilities of Crows," Covid Research Blog, 6-11-2015. The movie "The Magnificent Seven," 1960 ("heroic" cowboy-gunslingers) was based on "The Seven Samurai," Kurosawa's classic, 1954.

hans ostrom 2022

For 8

Between the celebrities 7 and 9,

you work quietly like the people who
keep societies going: parents, farmers,
masons, plumbers, janitors, maids,
nurses, teachers,....

Infinity, standing up. Something,
born of two nothings.

In a dream, I walked into a mild
desert and found an octagon, entered.
There were musicians playing,
and dancing, and warm laughter
at the edges, and eight blue
mountains in the distance.

hans ostrom 2022

he likes the licking, among other things

among other things,

I like to lick when she prefers
the licking. I like the licking part.

I like to lick that part of her, those
parts. I like the part where
I lick her--I like it a lot. a lot
of licking I like until and maybe
somewhat after the lick-assisted

crescendo, which may crescend
with some lively, calling out, including
perhaps a shout. most of all,
I like her liking the licking. her
liking the licking's the point, after

all, crescending or not. playfully,
lovingly, artfully licking: I like that
a lot, among those other things I like.

hans ostrom

American Tibetan Singer

North East Ska*Jazz Orchestra - "Take Five"