Cinquain: Cold Rain

Icy

rain raids here from
the West. Puddles become
ponds that ducks populate. Yes, we
shiver.

hans ostrom 2025

Night Bus in Frankfurt

On the night bus, I daydream.

I look into darknes through
reflections of riders. Out
there my mind wades in fog
on a muddy hillock, fearful
of hooves & the smell of marrow.
Turning from this,

I come back to the life of
the night bus, which calls to mind
a casino: well lighted, solemn,
ceaseless motion; shards of noise
and paper; tiny bells far off; fear
and weariness known by their
disguises: the effort of faces
to look placid, to glance only when
the other glances at another. Sweat
and minutes gather in muggy silence.

The night bus lights itself up
from inside like a grape.
The driver behind his curtain
is deaf to confessions, especially
to those of honest poverty. He
spits the name of my Wagenhalt
into an acid intercom,

opens darkness for me to enter.
After the sinister hiss of pneumatic
doors, after the last steel step,
I sniff the fog for spore of violence.

hans ostrom

THE KISS Trailer

You Are an Excellent Question

How grand you are,

like weather, impossible
to ignore. How precise
you are, like that one bough--
just one--on a cherry tree
about to blossom.

No wonder I wonder
at you when I really pay
attention. I should mention
I think we ought to visit
a bright lake, and splash,
or a cobblestoned alley

where there's a cafe
with cats in the window.
You make me know I
cannot know you completely.
You fascinate, you charm--
like a question so good it's perfect.

hans ostrom 2025

A Note from the Coca-Cola Company

"We have a beverage

for every occasion on Earth
and even 30, 000 feet
above it." Coca-Cola,

a multinational corporation
based on syrup and water,
left me this note on a napkin,
on a gray plastic tray in an airplane

whose engines roared, whose
flight attendants fought
boredom and ritual whining.
Water turned ouit to be

the beverage for that occasion.

hans ostrom 2025

A "found poem," at least partially. © Now   

Suave Route 66

"The Rose Family," by Robert Frost

Ceiling Fan

Four dull blades

whirl fanatically,

slashing at air
but never wounding it.

The room breathes
mild breezes.

hans ostrom 2025

Mount Rainier, Morning Commute

We in our wheeled box

join streams of them in theirs--
snaking lines of pale yellow
lamps and ruby red ones:
commuting traffic.

Immense, the volcano
Mount Rainier dwarfs
our rolling frenzy. This
morning the mountain
appears as a roughly sketched
triangle, all of it a back-lit
blue, two-dimensional, that

little tell-tale notch at the top
where one day, one night,
the molten inner Earth
will travel up and out,
blast ash, spew lava, rain
boiling mud on our busy silliness
down here on this plain.

hans ostrom 2025

Was Here

 in memory of J.L.B., "JImmy"

Sprinkle some of his ashes
in Mobile Bay. Watch
them float away past piers
on their way
to the Gulf of Mexico and forever.

Sprinkle some more
in Perdido Bay. He found
good trouble there
back in the day.

Take what's left. Say
the 23rd Psalm, sing
"Amazing Grace" with
seven unsure voices.
Watch a marlin too close
to shore leap out of water,
its whole blue-green body flashing
in sunlight. Sprinkle

the very last outside a saloon,
the Floribama, big and loud
and squatting on state bounder-
lines. He loved the place
so much he left his name
there years ago,

and added "was here."
Yes, walk out onto the bright
white sand, past the bikinis
and brown bodies, past
the hoisters of beer and rum.

Yes, drop the last
of his body's dust
into royal blue Mobile
waters as the wind pries
up a few white-caps.

Turn away, walk through
the bars and gift shops,
past the thumping country
cover band, out to the cars.
Drive away and one day, one
night, think "we were there once."

hans ostrom 2025

‘Amazing’ Texas Discovery Could ‘Rewrite’ American History | BBC Timestamp

"Desert Night," by Roger Illsley and Hans Ostrom

Home Tonight (Ledbetter/Illsley)