The Sound of a Person Inferred

The sound of air moving, of moving
air. The sound, moving through air,
of air. The sounds of other things,
other sounds, impromptu syncopation--

a glass against marble; a door,
a bird, silverware and silverware,
a plate against wood, none of these
seen, only heard, a person inferred.

The dopplerized squall of a passing car.
A lid going back on a jar.


hans ostrom 2018

Everything Had Its Say Today

Everything  had its say today.
Behind their branches, fir trees murmured.
Cars, as always, couldn't shut up, their
speeches dull and linear. Beams and joists
and pipes chatted, whined, and groaned
in buildings. Lots of complaining.

I kept waiting for rocks to talk.
They will one day. It takes them eons
to formulate a thought.

The sky speaks sign language,
except when lightning strikes.
Then comes that unmistakable
laughter of delighted air.

Also, sounds of screaming
and crying seemed to spring
from cages America locks children
in on borders, in jails. Yes,
weirdly, even steel and depravity
had their say today.


hans ostrom 2018

Jim Crow Never Left

In America White Supremacy's
the deepest state of all. Jim Crow
never left. He became Chief Justice.
He became President and Senate,
infiltrated police departments
and border patrols. His spores

live in millions, who demand
(and get) a nation in which only
they are people. Jim Crow always
demands and gets. His sulphorous
spirit rides in white sheets through
people's stupidity-soaked rage.

Only people who think they're white
can get rid of White Supremacy,
and they never do. They can't live
without it. It forms the core
of their religions, schools,
and neighborhoods. So

Jim Crow never left,
stays obese by feasting
on America's depraved soul.
He's driving the segregated
train back toward 1920
and off a cliff.


hans ostrom 2018

Pick and Shovel

Dig with a shovel, dig with a pen:
Heaney's formulation. This

morning I dug a shallow trench,
recalled my Old Man, Alec,
who taught me how to use a pick
and shovel right. The crucial
nuances. (I've never seen

a Hollywood movie in which
the digging and digger weren't
unintentionally ludicrous. Usually it
starts with the genre of shovel itself.)

Alec had dug everything from
blasted quartz gold ore to river
gravel mixing concrete, from
sewer-lines to stone-wall footings.
Also graves. Often he used a long steel bar
to make a boulder twice his
weight dance aside. In another

life, without a war, he would have
been a mining engineer or geologist.
He appreciated High Sierra rock
and soil. He never got frustrated
with them. Instead he stayed steady,
befriended leverage, let the tools
work. Piles of rock, piles
of dirt.  Soon the task melted.

Labor isn't poetry, but it has
a rhythm, rides repetition,
requires alert attention. By

the time finished the trench
today, old jeans and a paint-stained
shirt had siphoned pools of sweat,
and I as satisfied again with
the father I had had.


hans ostrom 2018

Kinds of People

There are two kinds
of people in this world:
those who think
there are two kinds
of people in this world
and those who don't.


hans ostrom 2018

Bell Sound from an Iron Bell

Nostalgia asked,
"Don't you prefer the sound
of a bell to come from a bell?"
I answered, "Yes, but not
because of you." It's true.


hans ostrom 2018

After Frogs Finally

After frogs finally
and all at once
(as if by contract or with
music charts) stop their
maniacal, charming belch-fest,
night air's suddenly
full of unused echoes,

which will stay for next
night's sprung chorus.

At this time, there will be
no statement regarding
hominids listening to frogs
while both have occupied
Time's gorges. Instead

we suggest you wonder
how it feels and sounds
to be a wet frog croaking
among other croaking wet frogs,
goodnight, goodnight, goodnight!
Do sense yourself a part of that fest. 


hans ostrom 2018

Metro, Milano

Three steps down,
and you inhale a wash
of metro exhale,
a garrulous breeze blending
smells of dirt, steel, people,
and the past. As with all metros,
even the air commutes.

Turnstiles and silly small
gates need to know about your ticket,
which gets eaten then
barfed up by something chrome.
How strange
that all the metro workers have
left these caves.

Because you think in cities
that violence whispers to everyone,
you hang back from the track
at least six strides.

The train bullies a wind
in front of it.  The car doors
hiss like bothered cats. Outflow
of guarded faces comes before
inflow of anxious faces,
and don't dare take your time,
as if it belonged to you.

How quiet the riders are.
The train does all the talking--
a recorded voice from the 1960s,
lilting and aloof. A few furtive
glances disrupt the numbed
glumness. In the caves,

a few beggars and buskers
reshape not at all the flow of torsos
and heads on legs.  Branches
of the River Metro flow against
gravity up to level, where
oceans of noise are ludicrously
loud. Below, above, it's all
a goddamned semi-efficient mess.
Take your allusions

to Plato, Styx, and Persephone
and toss them like a ticket.
Nobody cares.
This is urban business. Surplus
value rides these trains
wherever these trains ride.


hans ostrom 2018

Alps

odd word, alps--
awed by these massifs we
use a word that is a gulp


hans ostrom 2018

Museum of Design, Milano

in the cafe of
the Museum of Design
a warped table wobbles



hans ostrom

New Stars, Please

As we know,
the night sky needs updating.
Many stars visually
echo light from dead
sources. It's
astronomical lying.

Has Orion's belt
fallen off completely?

Has Ursa Major suffered
a mortal wound?

Are all the Seven Sisters
still a family?

I recommend looking
through glasses that filter
out light from dead stars.

True, astrologers might
be horrified. A bad
night for their horoscopes--
who could have predicted it?



hans ostrom 2018

So Somewhere Sally

So somewhere Sally
got lost on vacation.

She was working too
hard at relaxing.

She heard a cat
mew-owing.

The sound brought
her back to here,

where she were, in
the blur of being somewhere.


hans ostrom 2018

Swallows in Sicily

How long have swallows lived
in Sicily? They don't
ask questions like that.

They seem to live in
every town, just like Sicilians.
Their evening flights weave
patters impossible to extract.

They carve and slice the air,
teasing it into life after
its mid-day coma.

Their cries are tuned
to waver between
shriek and whistle.

At nightfall, in Cefalu,
we miss the swallows more
than the sun, more than
the fun we had, if we had
some fun, today.


hans ostrom 2018