Nightmare, My Visitor

At age 4, then lasting for years,
a short nightmare came to live with me.
(Sometimes it struck just as I nodded off.)

Me, in a dark oval space--
like a hollowed out eggplant.
I touched the pliant walls & then

a dark shape like a train engine
ran over me, erased me & I
startled myself awake to stay alive.

It visited less often down the years
& finally retired. Somewhere deep
in the mind's damp stone workshop,

a laborer toils to work through
something kept secret from me.
The translation of that bedeviling

dream lies in a vault down there.
I don't miss the nightmare. But if
it came back, I'd think, "Oh, it's you."

Her Lovely Power

Spanish night.

Black hair, long. Black eyes.
My desire meets her choice.
Her power holds me in a
Balance. Night's eyes glow.

Winter Chant

 

Winter shiver, light low.

Winter shiver, snow.
Icy days, crows hide.
The gray skies, wide.

Later Winter. Spring, come!
Pulsings like a drum.
Later Winter, longer days--
What the clock-watch says.

Latest Winter, buds swell:
Spring to ring its bell.
Watch for Winter shiver, though:
Mean frost--you never know.

Agoraphobics' New Year

 

Agoraphobic New Year

published some years ago

(to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne")


Will agoraphobics please

come out and help

bring in the Year?


No, that's all right. Thanks

anyway; we can see from

here just fine!

Pretender's Odyssey

Seems like every time I tried

to pretend to be someone else,

I was just pretending to act

like someone else & I got

tired of it fast. I then returned

to pretending to be

me. Which has been very

demanding because the task

is so ill defined & yet I'm

still dedicated to it. I act

like me & then look over

to see how I'm doing &

a me is glancing over his

shoulder, smirking,  as he runs. 

Like People, We Converse

 We're conversing like people

who converse. A walking
commentary. Opinions
flourish like weeds.

"The way things should be"
and "the way things used to be"
become the engines
that drive our words. What if we
spoke of things we never speak of?--

And grandma said, "I'd like crows
to turn lake blue one year." To which
grandpa said, "I was never eager
to fall in love because I thought of
it as just another chore."

Instead we keep familiar packages
of words moving down
conversational conveyor belts.
Because we're tired. Because
we're accustomed. Because
we get together only a couple
times a year and just want
to get through the occasions safely.

Nightmare, My Visitor

 At age 4, then lasting for years,

a short nightmare came to live with me.
(Sometimes it struck just as I nodded off.)

Me, in a dark oval space--
like a hollowed out eggplant.
I touched the pliant walls & then

a dark shape like a train engine
ran over me, erased me & I
startled myself awake to stay alive.

It visited less often down the years
& finally retired. Somewhere deep
in the mind's damp stone workshop,

a laborer toils to work through
something kept secret from me.
The translation of that bedeviling

dream lies in a vault down there.
I don't miss the nightmare. But if
it came back, I'd think, "Oh, it's you."

Holding on to Warmth

(nonet form: one less syllable per line)

Wind moaned so loud I thought it was you

on your side of our bed island.
Got up--temp was way below
freezing--freezing rain on
the way. Got back in bed.
Held on to you.
on to warmth,
our warmth,
love.

hans ostrom, 2022

"A Winter Twilight," by Angelina Weld Grimké

"Christmas Eve, Nearing Midnight--New York," by Langston Hughes

Office at Night

 

image: Edward Hopper's painting "Office at Night," 1940

It's 1940, and Pearl Harbor
has yet to wake Americans up
to historical catastrophe. City lights
illuminate her, voluptuous in blue
but ignored by the pale manager
droning out his own letter, which
she typed perfectly. It's Friday,
after five. Her desk is cleared,

she's ready to slam the black
steel drawer on another week
and meet the gals for a drink,
go home, kick her black heels
off, free her body from fashion
unclip the hose and roll them
off, strip the rest, and
sink nude into hot suds.

She stares down her olive
drab boss, whose wife's holding
his dinner at home and wobbling
under a headache. The office
is running out of air.

hans ostrom 2022

For Those Who Sleep With Pain

I have to sleep with pain tonight.

It seems to love me so.
I'd like to break things off.

Between my not-quite sleeping
and not-exactly waking,
I'll stumble down an alley
in my mind to get way
from pain. I'll ask a diner line-cook
"Where's the moon tonight?"
She'll crush her smoke out
then say, "Where it's always been,
my friend, trying to get the the Earth's
attention.

                At alley's end,
I'll walk out to a loud and crashing
avenue, a city's slamming noise.

The Lady from the  Fog will walk
up--say, "Time for you to go to bed?"
And there I'll be, pain kissing me,
and hugging me, throbbing, throbbing.
I'll take some meds, which don't do much.
I have to sleep with pain tonight.
I know I'm not alone. Around the world,
millions, millions, have to sleep with pain.
We have to sleep with pain. 

Galleries of Grit

Desert winds compulsively

sculpt sand. Abstract shapes
rise up, find edges, façades,

contours--then serve up all

they are unto the sculpting force.

 

The cosmic tourists--sun and stars

and moon--oversee these galleries

of grit, where place is art.

air's genius, and illusion

of form never tires ore expires. 

hans ostrom 2022