Galoshes

Great word, not a great boot.

Made of rubber, with metal clips,
not cloth or leather laces.

They kept my feet
dry but not warm. In
snow, they leaked.

What a joy to get them
& wet wool socks off,
to put dry socks on

and heat my feet
near the speckled
cast iron HOME COMFORT

stove, throbbing
with oak wood warmth.
The wants of a 10-year-

old, funneled down
to the wish for warmth and
a grudge against galoshes.

hans ostrom 2024

happenings

 rustling of a

  raven's wings
trilling, as a
  sparrow sings

scratching as a
  mouse hides things
segments of a
  bat's brown wings

look at how the
  green lichen clings
& lust imagines
  lavish flings

memory hears
  faint echoings
each day: infinite
  happenings

hans ostrom 2024

Escapes

An elephant escaped

the Point Defiance Zoo

and strode the streets

of Tacoma briskly, briefly,

as if going to work.

At a summer party

my parents threw, outside

in the High Sierra, the ever-

silent plumber, Otto,

sipped whiskey. He

saw a horse come up 

to the pasture fence.

Otto climbed the fence

& leapt on the horse, 

which galloped and tossed

him off. Otto got up,

came back, climbed over,

and sipped more whiskey.

First time

her husband struck her,

she loaded the two kids

and some luggage 

in the Chevrolet and drove

away, {No more of that shit,}

she said to her friend.

The old woman 

who had fought cancer

for five years lay

in a hospice bed,

comatose--but suddenly

woke--tried to get up

and run away. One last

attempt before

entering the light. 

hans ostrom 2024

Mavis Staples & Chris Stapleton "Friendship" 4/18/24 @YouTube Theater-85...

Best Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame induction you will ever see! Leon Russell ...

Ancestry

You collect photos, public records,

articles,, obits. Follow DNA maps.
Recover family lore. As you work,

you float out on a cloud,
looking down on all those people
you will never know

and who will never know you.
The mothers and miners, soliders
and bankers, caped eccentrics,

farm wives who plowed, gay
married uncles, preachers.
You cannot know them, only

scraps left behind, ghostly
outlines in chalk. They are
your family. They are not

your family. You want to build
a castle out of names, places, facts.
And live there, calling it Family.

It is a grand, fascinating
illusion, this ancestry, these crumbs
leading into a forest of the dead.

hans ostrom 2024

In a sentimental mood & Claire de lune (Stochelo Rosenberg & Joscho Step...

Dread

It's August in California's

Sierra Nevada mountains.
Green and gold and wildlife
reign. Bluest skies. You're
11 years old. You think of
September and school
and cold ball bearings
gather in your guts: dread.

It's July, same place.
You're sixteen, working
at your uncle's gravel
plant. He's often enraged
at life. He scares you.
Every workday morning,
carrying a gray lunch pail,
you walk slowly, as if
condemned, from your home,
up a dirt road
to the rock crusher.

It's more than five
decades later & you're
lying on a bed
in an operating room
lit up like a stage.
You stare at an
unspeaking semi-circle
of technicians
and nurses, waiting.

No one's given you
the drugs yet. The
surgeon won't enter
until you're under the sea.
Suddenly the sun-bright
lamps trigger a panic
attack, and you feel like
leaping up to flee. You
tell yourself, "Suck it
up," as a man you met
once is about to drill
a hole in your skull,
and go with tools
into your brain, your you.

hans ostrom 2024

Centerfold - bad boy (1984)

They Become the Exhibit

 In a queue, people shuffle

toward a museum's door.
Finally all inside, they take off
coats, hats, gloves, scarves.
Winter chill did not come in.

The walls of the single vast
room remain blank. No art
depends from them. The people
sit or stand or lie and examine
each other, and each one

becomes a work of art, and each
one's a startling rendering. Shadow
and light, noses in profile or not,
heads, shirted shoulders,
bellies, lines and angles.

Sculptures alive, paintings
that breathe, dancers in repose.
Some people seize delight
from being seen & stared at.
Others look away or down.
Glances ricochet, stick, or slide.

The people often smile. This
is one of the finest exhibits
they've attended, attending
to themselves, their bodily
being in Time.

Hans Ostrom 2024

A Merest Song of Gratitude

 I own hundreds

of regrets.
I've made dozens
of bad bets.
I lavish love
on household pets.
I am a wealthy man.

It seems I always
had a job.
Cash in pocket,
corn on cob.
Clock on wall,
watch on fob.
I am a wealthy man.

I have love and hope--
interests, too.
These help to ward off
deepest blue.
People to see,
things to do.
I am I am I am
a wealthy man.

Hans Ostrom 2024

Dreaming, Again

 Editors who loathe the Linear

cut and splice hybrid scenes
as I lie on padded islands
in sleep's softly surging sea.

Under slumber, I lumber
into the theater of these films
like a weightless rhino.

Swing low, sweet
licorice lariat, wrapping up
my stubby hooved legs.

Sing low, buzzing
baritone, I'm lullabied
like incubating eggs.

Hans Ostrom 2024

"After the Winter," by Claude McKay