Personal Relativity

They tell me time seems

to speed up the older people get
because each day, month, or year
becomes a smaller and smaller
percentage of the overall total.
I hate math, so cold, so correct.

I recall school years
that dragged on for decades.
A magical summer or two
lasted a millennium. Then

the time wagon turned into
a bullet train and five years
became a minute. Whole years
vanished like peas down a sink.

Today a woman said to me,
"I'm 70 years old. What
happened?" I said, "Ask that
bastard, time. Happy birthday!"

The Golden Butterfly

In an old Gold Rush town's cemetery

on a hillside, summer, we were building
a cinder block enclosure for a family plot.

I stood up for a moment
to unkink the back and gazed
from the shade of the big
graveyard oaks, down the hill
to where brilliant sunlight shown.

I saw a golden butterfly
take its lazy, jagged, jazzy
flight into the light
and finally out of my vision.
Back to work.

The image has lived with me
since then, alighting like a butterfly
on a tall flower, lowering and lifting
its stiff, patterned wings,
trying to defy time.

"Who Are You?" (music video)

Queue Behavior

Note that a second u
and a second e wait
in line behind the first
ones but never
make it to the front.

Many moons ago
when I worked in Germany,
I learned how queues
in Germany collapse
as, wordlessly, most people
cut in line until a blob
replaces the line. I
tended to get on the bus
to Bretzenheim last, amused.

In Sweden, one queues up
and behaves. To do otherwise
would be impractical, egocentric,
and vaguely weak of will. The
idea being, if indeed an idea it
was, it's just a line, this is life,
one must endure, and we're
in Sweden, so chill out & say little.

hans ostrom 2023

Crème Vichyssoise Glacée: It's Easier Than It Sounds--Oui, Louie?

Earth food, dirt food, rugged
root food: leeks and potatoes--
boil them together & puree & hey!
they don a celebrity nom de potage--
crème vichyssoise glacée. True,

it holds much salt and white pepper,
and of course a dash of thick cream,
with a sprinkling of chopped fresh
chives atop, bright green confetti.

Louis Diat hauled his Maman's
recipe to New York in 1910 but
didn't spring on the Ritz-Carlton guests
til 1917. Cold soup. But if you warm it
up on a chill Fall day, who would know?

hans ostrom 2023

Where You're Coming From

You can go only
from where you are,
the where being your
heavy body, as light
as it might be, a
neural factory you
take with you on the road,
any way whatever. You know

you're more than body,
but it is where you are,
your starting point
and final destination.

You must start from there,
and the end could come
anywhere but will be with
your body there with you,
of you. This is the paradox,

the dilemma, which inspires
dreams--and impulses
to create: points and routes
of escape, of play, of another way.

hans ostrom 2023

Vertebrae

Vertebrae, keys of spinal
melody. Oh how we twist
and crunch them, reckless
in our lives, driven by the stress
of play and work, the herky
jerky movements of our time
here in space. Neck

to lower back, brain to bum,
the line that used to run
parallel to ground but then
uprighted itself to perpendicular
in an evolutionary wood,
shadows dappling light.

Dicey discs, gambler's risks
tossed on motion's gaming table,
connectors than enable.

hans ostrom 2023

Addicted to Blue

Once he was addicted to blue.

Life was ocean, lakes, and I-miss-you.
Three chords of dissonance & the color
of mountains furthest back
in a landscape view. Then

came green, as in the great
conifer forests of the Western Hemisphere.
As in lettuce and spinach and lush,
long poems. As in American football
fields where he left too many hours,
too much salty sweat. As in gardens he

planted, doted on, weeded, watched
and watched. And the car, sometimes
filled with women's perfume
and voluptuous presence. Camaro,
the petrol beast was called, silver-green,
and in one of those black bucket-seats,
a wild, witchy woman with green eyes
once sat. Once sat and smiled. And was.

Then wasn't. Dead. And every so often,
blue, he thinks I-miss-you, addicted to blue.

hans ostrom 2023

The Sanity of a Nap Amidst Mint

Oh, almost overheated

in humid sunshine, I
sit down to pull up wicked
grass out of an emerald bed
of mint. I feel like a

Gulliver washed up on a
perfumed isle. What a plant
is mint! As tough as port rope.
As cool as 1950s jazz.

I regret not cooking with it
more. Turkey, Arabia, and Iran
treat it with proper respect.

Shirt soaked in salted sweat,
I want to lie down to nap
on this bed of mint, sedated
by the extravagant odor. Such
plain desires keep me sane.

hans ostrom 2023

Hugging on a Bed

Just two people holding

each other on a bed
for some minutes in eternity.

It's an ancient, common,
immediate act--warm.
Only vaguely do we bring

specific memories of
our long time together.
We're prone and holding

one another's fated
bodies, that's all,
that's plenty. We're

not here to work out
problems. Or to achieve.
We're here to hold.

To hold on. To feel good.
And rest! To let our minds
float as if on slow,

salty harbor water.
Here to step briefly
away from pressuring

time & to shape
a space in which
we know we fit.

Not that long ago,

few humans lived here.
What noise there was
came mainly from creatures,
water, wind through trees.

Now I walk out of
a building called a
supermarket, my feet
padding on concrete.

The habitat's composed
of cars and buildings.
Lots of wires. Spaces
strangled by paving.

Fluff from a cottonwood
tree flies like snow. Crows
strut and lecture. A

mated pair of geese
fly low over the store,
honking hilariously.
I really don't know
what to make of
anything anymore.

hans ostrom 2023

For the Number 11

Sympathies to you, eleven,

the first echo-number, two
flagpoles, a football or rugby
goal. After the glamorous run

from one to ten, the system
needed a dutiful number,
and you stepped in. No good
numeral deed goes unpunished:

Peter Bungus, 16th century,
charged you with being evil.
Other cultures did as well.
So human: to ignore evil
that exists so as to invent
the sight of it elsewhere.

Eleven, may you
and seven seek a long
vacation, far away from
superstition, 18 days on
a beach or next to an alpine
lake. Two poles, a rope,
and canvas: a simple tent
for a simple number and friend.

hans ostrom 2023

Train Work at Night

Night--& trains in the switching yard

moan and sigh. Sometimes steel
on steel squeals. Shuffling
of heavy shapes, a tired herd of
pachyderms. A lullaby of
old industry and titanic
monopolists. Maybe some kids
are spray-painting plump
coded graffiti on boxcar sides.

hans ostrom