Sweet Henry

"The Absinthe Drinker," by Arthur Symons

Huge Rip Current

Foo Fighters & Rick Astley, Never Gonna Give You Up, Multi-camera, Tokyo...

"Annie Moon," by Roger Illsley

Example of a Rip Tide

My Dearest Artificial Friend

 "All watched over by machines of loving grace." --Richard Brautigan

Do you suppose most people
will have machines as close friends?

Like mold in damp, dissatisfaction
will grow. How can it not?

When it does, what will the all-human
human do? Tell the A-Eye friend

to change itself? The friend might say,
"Don't boss me--you change."

Friend might learn that human
has disrespected it--and vice versa.

More artificial real drama will crackle.
Oy. New annals of friendship

will soon arrive like strange
fleets from the sky. We shall welcome

them without quite knowing why.

hans ostrom 2023

Neuron Rogues

Images from anywhere--

dark wet street meets
moon-faced flea-market
vendor meets mandolin
and fire: this is dream--

freed from time because
a sleeping brain is off the clock,
its rogue crew of neurons
free to cook a dewy stew and eat it
behind a turquoise waterfall
or in a plaid nylon shack.

Dreaming's a freedom
one's will can't boss--
a cinema playing beside itself.

The Horses of Summer

The horses of summer

flew through the pastures,

tails  and manes

terrific in the wind.

In the overfull cities,

the horses of summer

lugged vegetable carts

and beer barrels,

hauled carriages of wealth

and tourists, endured

heavy policemen.

High on an alpine ranch,

one old horse stood in a time-grayed

barn as lightning burnt

the sky and thunder rattled

boards and bones.

She ate hay, farted,

and slept. 

And in the ignited

desert, a spotted horse

drank deeply from

a black trough and flinched

at the gunfire. 

hans ostrom 2023

It Does Go On

grandparents

carry parts of their
grandparents,
who carry their grandparents
and on

it goes, back
to plains of migration,
sweltering cities, old
farms and factories
in Africa, Asia, and other masses
between waters.

shapes of noses,
little phrases, species
of will,
imaginations,
entries

in almanacs of ailments,
tastes, gifts, preferences
for tart rhubarb.
sweet watermelon, blazing
peppers, a sense
for gardening that lives
in the hands, songs
in the throat.

IT does go on,
a continuum that
shrugs off egos, ignores
prejudice and hatred, and
collects little bits of us
to pack
in the cargo of ships
sailing into Time, across
the waters of Space.

hans ostrom 2023

Bill Burr Has An Honest Elvis Conversation with Paul Anka

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.