"Easy Beat," by Keith Ledbetter and Roger Illsley (lyrics: hans ostrom_

"I Like Longing," by Halina Poświatowska

"This I Know," by Keith Ledbetter and Roger Illsley

"The Fight," by Russell Edson

"At the Party," by W.H. Auden

"Self-Portrait," by A.K. Ramanujan

War is not a Joke

"I Like to See It Lap the Miles," by Emily Dickinson

Walk Away Renee (Studio Live)

The Dog in MInd

Your thoughts become

a flock of sheep
distracting you
from needed sleep.

You ask a dog in mind
to run sheep off a cliff.
The dog just barks and
barks: as if, as if as if.

hans ostrom 2025

It's Fine, Just Fine

By an old guy's standards,

a hot day on the Pacific Coast.

Heat cooks the sky

to an ashen blue.

I work in the garden some. 

Gardeners volunteer

join the Sisyphus

crew. They toil through

myriad cycles that roll

around to starts. Water,

soil, sun, seed, sprout,

plant, blossom, veg, fruit. 

Dig and pull and lift and tend.

It all collapses like a circus

tent. Winter eats leftovers,

belches frost. In Spring,

it's Finnegan Begin-Again.

Heavy mud, dead stalks.

In the now, I fall back

into a chair, guzzle water,

dash some on my face

and neck. A crow lands

on a wire and keeps its

beak open to let heat

out of its body. The bird

and I just happen to be 

now here in this tiny wedge

of nature. We finish

tasks as assigned, 

and it's fine, just fine.

You and me, bird, you

and me and that 

minor, muscled god

whose name hisses.

hans ostrom 2025

"Put a Ring on My Ring Finger," by Roger Illsley

"Encounter," by Czeslaw Milosz