Convicted Art

Sometimes I think museums

imprison art, jamming convicted
paintings into overcrowded galleries.

Each framed work seems
to want to live alone, lounging
in the care of just one person--

pardoned. Dull-eyed, we visitors
stagger and stand with guide-books,
stare at hanged landscapes

and superb but silly portraits.
We stumble from one walled off
period to another, under the sleepy

eyes of guards. For the crime
of having been made famous,
turned-in to authorities by collectors,

the art clings to walls, stays
still like spiders. Exhausted,
we get released into whatever

city we're visiting. Maybe we breathe
deeply and think of the fresh art
taking shape right there, right then.

hans ostrom 2022

October

It was my father's favorite month,
tourists having evaporated. Time to
hunt a bit, when dark oak trees
detonated clouds of orange
in the evergreen Sierra mass.

October at the college,
ritual ivy going gold
to keep illusions alive &
the syllabus I sweated over
in August seeming to cruise--
as long as I, like a mechanic,
tinkered, replaced parts,
oiled students' rusting interest
with adjustments, listened
for the tell-tale whine.

October: darkness demands
more time. No bargaining allowed.
I fall in love again with sunlight,
hoping she will have me back
again, late in Spring.

hans ostrom 2022

A Shepherd In War Time

 A shepherd sees drones cruise

over the pasture and blast his village
to bits. Bloody bits, he knows. He
falls to his knees, collapses.

The panicked sheep have scattered.
The dog cowers--but now approaches
the shepherd. Who holds tight
to the dog. They are both shaking.

The shepherd begins to walk
toward his village. The closer
he gets, the more wailing he hears.
His mind fades in and out.

His legs will barely carry him.
He trusts the dog will gather the sheep
and protect them.

hans ostrom 2022

© 4 days ago    war • shepherd • atrocity • 

Singer Rhiannon Giddens becomes new artistic director of Yo-Yo Ma's Silk...

These are not normal times.

I filled my guitar with water and it sounds UNREAL

Head-Shrinks and I

I went to a Freudian. She didn't

say anything, just took reams of notes.

I wanted to read them: No. Once

I said the word "emblematic,"

and she rolled her eyes. I quit

after the second session. Freudian

time-waster. 

A psychologist had me 

write charts of when I catastrophize,

over-react. They made for a good

map of how nutty I was,

but didn't crack the nut. 

I liked her a lot. 

Then a psychiatrist, polymath,

know-it-all. I listened a lot,

which suited my diffidence. 

I want to be told how to fix

things, not blab and gab

and gas-bag. He prescribed

meds that work. Finally! 

I just don't have the time

or energy to stay crazy,

you know? Too much of

a commitment. 

I noticed that if a session

ran out of gas (because I

didn't talk), a couple of shrinks

would say, "Want to talk about

dreams?" Inside joke among

shrinks, I think. Doubly funny,

as after I sleep through 

a great night of dreaming,

wild surrealistic rides,

I feel as sane as hell. 

hans ostrom 2022

Emily Dickinson on ghosts: "One Need Not Be a Chamber to Be Haunted"

"Ghosts," by Elizabeth Jennings

"Haunted Houses," by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Amazing version of All Along the Watchtower (Dave Matthews Band featuring Celisse..

"Fresh Cheese and Cream," by Robert Herrick

Bell's Inequality: The weirdest theorem in the world | Nobel Prize 2022