Wednesday, September 6, 2023

Panic Attack

It makes your brain
feel like a sausage stuffed
with worry. It makes
your chest feel like a zoo
where on their own
all the cages opened
and here come the animals.
It spurs your heartbeat
like a drunken cowboy.
The world becomes a galaxy,
as you become smaller
than a poppy seed.

hans ostrom 2023

Monday, September 4, 2023

Pale Parody

 The Old Earth spins
as it rolls
around the even older
Sun,
whose light Moon
bounces
onto Earth in a genial,
pale parody.


hans ostrom 2023

Saturday, September 2, 2023

"All Of Us Are In Some Sort Of Theater We Create For Ourselves" - Werner...

Grandfather Anthem

I went to a picnic
and played my role:
grandpa. I held the youngest,
9 months old, and sang
a few bars of a song I
made up just for him.
He pushed the side
of my face: everybody's

a critic. I kicked a soccer
ball with the four-year-old,
who calls me "Papi"
and pummels me with the
word Why? in our
conversations. Sometimes
I answer, "I'm not sure,"
which could serve as the
opening line of
a Grandfather Anthem.

hans ostrom 2023

Late Bloomer

The symmetrical mound
of purple chrysanthemums has bloomed.
Such a restrained flower--
signaling Fall like a lovely
but modest actuarial checking
her calendar. And the bees,

the bees, greedy for nectar,
hover--then attach themselves
to purple and got to work,
with their whole bodies,
to extract, as if they sensed
an urgency in the air.

hans ostrom 2023

Friday, September 1, 2023

"To A Mouse" by Robert Burns (read by Sir William "Billy" Connolly)

Nose to the Glass

Oh, the stories you tell yourself
about yourself. Constantly.
Certain scenes keep coming around
like mail delivery. You recall bad
behavior. It begs at once for
regrets and excuses, which,
combined like soda and vinegar,
merely fizz. You invent arcs

in your life, heroic ups and downs.
You list alleged achievements.
You indict, forgive, forget, fudge,
and, exhausted, give in to fatalism.

You keep this silly sense of Self
afloat like a raft on a slow river.
No, it's more like Self's just a
habit, like a mannequin in a
window you walk by compulsively
or stare at, nose to the glass.

hans ostrom

Andre Breton - Definition of Surrealism

"Fresh Cheese and Cream," by Robert Herrick