Without Shadow

My shadow left me for a day.

It joined a general shade.
In sun I looked down on the walk
In vain to find a silouette made.

Without my shadow, I felt sad
And wondered did I still exist?
Did light sail through my body now?
Was I insubstantial as a mist?

My shadow, it returned at last
And soldered itself to me.
My shadow proves my substance, yes--
It places and displaces--see?

hans ostrom 2024

Northern Hemispheric November

Oh, November--

my bête noire,
cabinet of cold rain,
sinister capitan of snow,
avant garde of Winter,
tree-stripper, soil-sealer,
gloom-injector, glum puritan.

Oh, November, neither
enemy nor friend, just a
doom-inducer, a sour neighbor,
a moldy blanket, a day-cutter,
a sun-shrouder: you
are a head-cold kind of month.

hans ostrom 2024

Lin Manuel-Miranda endosa a Kamala Harris y rechaza a Trump: “Estoy tan ...

"We cannot elect this man as president"

Conservative Man Proudly Frightened Of Everything | Onion Now: Focus

Is it possible that after 42,000 people killed, you cannot empathize wit...

"To Put One Brick Upon Another," by Philip Larkin

"The Composer," by W.H. Auden

"The Waning Moon," by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Lead the Way

Take my hand, draw

me to your warmth.
Show me what you
want me to want.
Unconfuse me. Simplify,
eye to eye. I'm so tired
of being supposed to know.

So show what you know
I want, what you want.
Clearly you know. You know
clearly. Into your warmth I go--
a room, a place, a bed, a world,
a dream with walls and pillows,
perfume, talk, and linen. So
take my hand.

hans ostrom 2024

Puerto Rican U.S. Army Veteran SLAMS Vile Madison Square Garden Remarks ...

Fathers

Receiving

Tried receiving, not

broadcasting. Sat next
to a tree, took in
a breeze, leaf rustle,
taps and clicks
of shoes passing,
my lungs & heart
pumping. Walked

in a crowd as No One.
Among bodies, felt
the muscle, bone, fat
flow of fabricked bodies,
dances of passing, jostling,
slipping-bay, stop-starting.

Engines, motors, voices,
glass reflections, smoke,
all of it as it was, just
itself, not a message,
just signals received.

hans ostrom 2024