Hello, Stranger

 (with apologies to Barbara Lewis, who recorded the song "Hello, Stranger," in the 1960s)

As I walked under
a Norwegian spruce
today, a dove cooed
three times.

It sounded like someone
blowing carefully
on a conch shell:
the hard c in coo

had dissolved.
Three musical notes:
what a nice thing
to say to a stranger

walking by, I thought--
how sweetly polite,
how tonal, coaxing a
smile out of me.

hans ostrom 2023

Squashes in the Farmers' Market

Market squashes (do the Brits

call them "marrow"?) conjure a carnival
of painted shapes self-sculpted
by the genius of seeds. Like books,
the squashes have pulp inside,
enclosed by hard or soft covers.

Some species hold a hollow
zone where sound can play.
Dried gourds become instruments,
and a thumped pumpkin will mumble
autumn syllables. A crook-necked
squash can become the baton
that conducts Zucchini's unfinished
symphony. Still, Fall does mean

the party's over. We select our squash,
haul it home to grill or bake--or cut up
raw. Next Summer's vines are already
blue-printed in seeds as the soil rolls
over, exhausted, in need of dreams.

hans ostrom 2023

Uphill

July heat hangs over the bottom

of the hill, scratching at me
like an old wool blanket.

Crows that aren't picking
mites from feathers
leave their beaks open

to cool down. Mid-way
up the climb, I flag
& my vision gets a little

weird. Dehydration.
I sit on a a dark grey
rock under a tree.

Finally I make it to
the top of the hill:
a breeze kicks in.

I feel better but still
old & I buy a bottle
of water, splashing

some on my hot
neck and forehead,
guzzling the rest.

People, shrubs, buildings,
buses: though brightly lit,
they all, every one, look tired.

hans ostrom 2023

We, the Scribblers

Pencil, pen, typewriter, or

device--it's al scribbling.
Poets scribble. They worry

words like squirrels
spinning chestnuts
in their paws, like spiders

dancing on filaments
they've spun. From Li Bai
stumbling through the Chinese

mountains to a right-now
middle-school girl or boy
in Tehran or Kansas,

to an old man or woman
in Costa Rica or the Ivory Coast,
everywhere poets find a page,

an opening, a little place,
in which to scratch words
they know that seem to push

themselves out, hauling
ideas and emotions with them
from some underground mind,

some sense of things
in the gut or the chest,
some wildness amid the

planks and bricks of conformity.

hans ostrom 2023

Under the Heat Domes

Near the supermarket (and what

an American word that is), crows
peck at a crumpled bag from

a fast-food place; a woman begs
(her sign says "ANYTHING HELPS/
GOD BLESS"); and a two-acre

parking lot fills with cars
that face each other in lines
like 18th century troops.

The windshields glare.
The black tires roast.
Car alarms start to twitch.

I'm just another ghost
in training, pushing an empty
cage on wheels, headed

toward a section called Produce,
an Impressionist's or Cubist's
heaven of colors & shapes invented

by soil, trees, bushes, stalks,
and vines. Much of the Northern
Hemisphere today is on fire

and under heat domes. The
supermarket's air-cooling
machines crank out false breeze

in the false peace of retail space.

International Share a Secret Day

Hey, It's International Share a

Secret Day, or I've been lied to,
anyway it's a day when spies

and politicians go mad &
confessors go glad, pleased
to let at least one heavy hidden

tale fly light and free and bright
like a butterfly. Many secrets
there are out there today!

They swarm like hornets,
they roll like waves of desert
dust, and some stink like

putrefied garbage. I've kept
some secrets so long, they've
dried up like dates in a pharaoh's

tomb & there's nothing to tell,
so I make something up. I lie.
I whisper fiction-secrets

like squeaking crickets
on this gabby, shabby date called
International Share a Secret Day.

hans ostrom 2023

Solace

I read the word solace

in a novel and look at it hard
for the first time.

The word reminds me
of a thin, single pane of glass
in an old farmhouse.

It rattles in storms.
It could crack at any time.
Spiders nest against it.

Solace is a window. It
does let light into the attic
of grief. But not enough.

hans ostrom 2023

Ava Intimates S/S 17

"Tuesday Blues," by Roger Illsley

DAVID GATES & GLEN CAMPBELL ( MEDLEY )

Werner Herzog anecdote about Klaus Kinski's "egomania"

RICHARD BURTON SPEECHS TO FRANK SINATRA 1983

Man In Store Standing In Front of Mops

Lots of mops for sale, I see.

Some end in rectangular sponges
(harvested from rectangular seas?).

Some end in wigs of rope, some
in plastic absences to be filled by
the legendary "sold separately."

If I stand by these mops too long,
I'll worry someone. But where would
I go? Not to the meat department,

certainly not to the carnival
of cereal boxes full of sugar.
Perhaps to red fruits and green

vegetables? For now I'll stand
and stare, thinking of my grimy
floor, and I will try "acting normal"--

a strange state of being.

hans ostrom