The Burst

Garden's

green about to
burst into pink and red,
yellow, purple, lavender, white.
Late May.

hans ostrom 2023

Rick Reacts: CNN Town Hall

Harry Connick, Jr. Teaches Jennifer Lopez About Pentatonics

Collected Poems Available on Kindle

The Coast Starlight: Collected Poems 1976-2006 by an obscure poet named Hans Ostrom is now available as an e-book via amazon.com Kindle, and it's cheap. Cheap, I tell you. Cheap:

https://www.amazon.com/Coast-Starlight-Collected-Poems-1976-2006/dp/1598581023/ref=sr_1_1?crid=13L6KZGXKPA4H&keywords=ostrom+coast+starlight&qid=1683817431&s=books&sprefix=ostrom+coast+starlight%2Cstripbooks%2C151&sr=1-1

John Cleese in hysterics over King Charles’s Coronation - ‘It was a Mont...

Norah Jones and Kris Kristofferson “Help Me Make It Through The Night” W...

Assessing an Evening

What evens at evening?

A dog's barking takes bites
out of quiet. In their buildings,
people cook, drink, take medicine,
talk, give up, rage, look at screens.

Outside, birds have returned
to nests and perches, warming
each other, silencing caw, shriek,
whistle, and song. I decide to use
all this information as evidence

of local equilibrium at dusk,
something that's fine by me.
I'm more weary than optimistic.

hans ostrom 2023

I Spy the Local Eagle

I'm hauling a bin of prunings

and clippings when a bald eagle
flies by low. With one quick
side-glance, it unnerves me.

Such a sure bird, dark and big-
shouldered, yellow-clawed
like a dragon, its wide wings
like a glider's. Those white

head-feathers surround cold
binocular eyes, microscopic
if need be, as when the eagle
parks above water, wings wide,
not moving, not straining, absolute
mastery of air-currents. And
the bird with the wrecking
beak looks down. Sees
the necessary fish. Dives.

Bound to land, I pull
the bin like a large draught horse,
heavy-footed, and a breeze
teases my cap.

hans ostrom 2023

Northern Flicker

Northern flicker, cousin

of the wood-peckers:
It's such an accidental dandy,
with polka dots, a black cravat,
dusk-blue cap, red ornament--
and a subtly curved, bladed beak.

And when it takes off,
a shock of yellow shows
like the lining of cape.

Each early Spring, one flicker
beak-hammers the metal flashing
on our chimney. I'm back!
Such a lonely, obvious bird,
too guileless to annoy.

It likes to blast a high-pitched
shriek and dine on fat bugs
pincered out of trees and posts.

I've never not been thrilled
to see or hear a Northern flicker.

hans ostrom 2023

Former Navy Commander's strong message for Florida on what a book ban means

He Wheels His Worldly Goods

He wheels his worldly goods

now in a chair 
his mother sat in as he pushed her
along sidewalks and into shops
not far from her small place where
he slept on the couch, and helped her out.

She died, all leases up, and so
he's back on streets, in parks,
and underneath the tarp he carries
with him. He washes up wherever
he can. --Getting by,

getting warm when possible in
a world where people try like hell
to look away. The barrier between
the sheltered and unsheltered seems
high to them. A few toss money over it.

He could tell them (but he never does)
with what ease a person can slip down
the ladder. A little illness and some
depression, or psychosis, add some
loss of work and a broken web of friends
and family--and that will do the trick.

One night you're sleeping in your car.
And then you have to sell the car for cash.
And then you're pushing all you have
in a chair your ma used to sit in
as she encouraged you not to lose hope.

hans ostrom 2023

Counter-Invictus

 a poem in conversation with William Ernest Henley's "Invictus"

Out of the day that covers me,
Gray as the gray of dull wool,
I think what gods may hang around
To remind me I'm a fool.

When things have gone quite wrong,
I've acted well or badly or okay,
Up to the challenge sometimes, sometimes
Not: One can't predict which way.

Beyond this sphere of our mortality,
Lies who knows what for sure?
Hell, yes, I am afraid to die,
To go forever from Is to Were.

To say you are the Captain of
Your fate is bluster or delusion
For accidents happen all the time.
And Captains sail into confusion.

If there is such a thing as Fate,
Then It is the big fleet's Admiral,
And we, alas, at best passengers.
So how much can we control?

hans ostrom 2023

Hovering Sipper

I expanded the cinquain form here to 7 lines--a septtain? 2, 4, 6, 8, 6, 4, 2 syllables per line. Syllabics can be pleasurable--for the writer, at least--sometimes. 

Hovering Sipper

A hum-
ming bird, its back
iridescent green, its
gray wing-blur wrapping its body,
sips shots from the powder blue
rosemary blooms.
April.