Poets, Keep Going

Poets, whatever else you do--
fitting pipes, washing clothes,
fighting fevers--keep going.

Language invented itself
so creatures like you could
squawk complaints, snap
rage, run a rhythm or two,
mumble melodies, blather,
and boom. Doom is a constant,
a function of matter. No matter,

keep going: the saying and
scribbling, the text-tiling
and questidigitation are
frivolous and crucial, vile
and vain, and a rare form of sane.


hans ostrom 2019

Bourbon Street Blues

Bourbon Street's a nightmare
the subconscious mind refused
to publish: too obvious. Frat boys,
sorority royalty, and benumbed
conventioneers move through
the neon chute like cattle. Some
of them yell as if yelling had
just been invented.

To thrive, the clubs must be
as loud as train wrecks. Batter
their ears, three-personed band.
At 4:00 a..m. there's a funeral
for moonlight smothered by clouds.

Sex workers and pickpockets
count their wages. Obligato
snarls from a fat motorcycle
finish off kitschy rituals.
Solo buskers and Black kids
who beat on plastic buckets
make the only tunes worth
listening to. People make
a living here. That's the point,
really the only point.


hans ostrom 2019

Silence-Management

How do you shape your silences?
What do they serve? Some
silences seem to preside
over thoughts that keep going,
keep searching for nothing
except the next object of thought.

There's the quiet in the mind
following failure, the sound
of shame and acquiescence.

Yesterday you heard a noise
that came you thought from
inside a wall. You found a silence
and leaned into it, hoping/not hoping
to hear the sound a second time.
The next day you remembered
it as a silence to savor, not as
an absence of something you sought.


hans ostrom 2019

Their Dominion Today

Always the birds, to haul you back
from history, splendor's clutter,
and your grasping mind. On a steel
bench outside Catherine's Summer
Palace, near a lakely pond,
I get an ear buzzed by a sparrow
on its way to pick over grain
tourists tossed to ducks.

A black and grey raven lands
close on a bench-back, cocks
its head to cast a cold eye
of inquiry. Sun warmth,
oaks, willows, and breeze suggest
Central California to me.
Our landscapes are so much
more similar than our politics
force us not to be. Here

is here. Birds live in their
own geography and polity.
They know they can't eat
history or nest in ideology.
Today is their dominion
outside St. Petersburg.


hans ostrom 2019
revision

New to Blue

Different hues of blue
assert different moods to you.
It's true: when you forget
to mind your mind,
it will try to run every
sensed impression through
its symbolizing factory,
which manufactures far
too many products.

You reach a point
where you refuse delivery,
wanting to be able to experience
meaninglessly, or try to,
as if you were for instance
new to blue.


hans ostrom 2019

Ginko Divestiture

That old ginko tree flung
its cache of currency at the wind
as if it had taken a vow
of ginko poverty. Here,
it said to Fall, have it all,
and tell Winter to choke
on it, like gall.


hans ostrom 2019

They Need Easy

Up and down the stairs
of scales the bossa nova moves,
garbed in 1960s threads. A
crowd shuffles and sways
to these terraced tunes.
These folks have fled the future,
which is fond of atrocity. Sort
of dancing, they need easy.
They want to rest in it
and love and laugh in it,
knowing something simple
like the bossa nova.


hans ostrom 2019

Cities

Mutant geometries. Labor
mills. Silos of capital.
Rivers of sewage. Noise
wars. Reservoirs of suckers.
Culture forts. Illusions
of Always. Power bunkers.
Hives for the homeless. Rodent
carnivals. Poverty gardens.
Ministries of fashion. Megaliths
of indifference. Injection sites.
Status farms. Cargo inhalers.
Leverage cathedrals. Temples
of excess. Catacombs of loneliness.


hans ostrom 2019

His Final Thought

Just before he died
he realized nothing
was heavy or dark
and everything was
light. And light.



hans ostrom 2019

Outside the Norseman Pub with Time

Outside the Norseman Pub in Dublin,
Time heard me thinking of  dates
& events in one of its pasts. "What are you
thinking about those for?" asked Time.

"You need to move on."

Three Irish women walked by.
Their lilting, lovely conversation
played in the air like aural butterflies.
(I don't think Yeats would have liked

that comparison.) "See," I said
to Time, "I can do the present,
too, so leave me alone." Highlights
in the women's hair shone. 


hans ostrom 2019

The Legend of the River Liffey Pike

And here we will pass on
the tale of the River Lifffey
Pike. This pike was so big
(so big!) that in order to
change its direction in the
Liffey, it had to perform
a three-point turn like
a black limousine. And this
is as true as it possibly can be.

Over many years, all the
anglers around Leixlip
and Straffan tried to catch
the pike but the giant just
slammed into their legs,
ate lines and leaders,
snapped fishing poles
like twigs, and threatened
children and nuns.

Finally one day the
notorious poacher Bon
hooked the massive mean
pike with sturdiest leader,
line, and pole. A dry
fly he was using. Bon
fought the fish, fought
it but couldn't reel it
in. So he went to the bank
with his pole and circled
a large tree many times,
docking the River Liffey
Leviathan. Then Bon

clambered up the bank
and lumbered is way
to the Salmon Leap Tavern
in Leixlip. He recruited
a band of Guinness-lit
lads to help him haul the
big pike in. Bon led

the laughing band down
to the bank, only to find
that the leader, the line,
the pole, the tree, and the fish
had all disappeared.

So big, so large, so grand
was the River Liffey Pike
that it had hooked the famous
poacher Bon, played him
for an optimist (all anglers
are optimists, they must be),
reeled him in, and dropped
him in the creel of local legend.

On your travels you may find
yourself in Leixlip on Cooldrinagh
Road, Lucan Demesne, County
Kildare, Ireland. Stop by the Salmon
Leap Tavern, it's there, and after
you've settled in with a pint
and made the acquaintance
of those in attendance, ask them if
they've heard of the River Liffey
Pike that gathered in the leader,
the line, the pole, and the tree
and set itself free from the infamous
poacher, Old Bon, who upon returning
from his loss, stood all the lads
to a pint and started to tell
them a story they already knew
and added some details, a few,
just a few.


hans ostrom 2019

On the Leg to Dublin

Something is rotten in Amsterdam.
Probably my clothes during a day
and its night of air(less) travel.

The Amsterdam airport is almost
as empty as the American
president's head. One more leg

to go, I go through a gate only
to get on a bus, which takes me and
the rest of a considerable herd

past an epic line of florescent
hyphens in the dark. They suggest
an endless industrial pause

for no effect. From the bus I
see that over the airplane
hangs a moon that looks like

an egg with problems. Clouds
soil it. Out of the bus I go up
some iron steps to my seat,

which is 2-B, or not 2-B: much
is contingent upon the mood
of an Irish attendant on unpaid

overtime. She makes the woman
seated in front of me stow
a stuffed toy dolphin overhead.

Her co-attendant Conor re-counts
the passengers as a Dutch man
in a yellow vest tells the aircraft's

captain he's going to write a report.
He says several more times, "I'm
going to write a report." The aircraft

seems to fall asleep. I think Hamlet
should have traveled more, gotten
out of the castle into the world,

away from swords and ghosts
and other castle creeps. "Tighten
your seat belt," the Irish attendant

tells me. Her last name's McCarthy.
If she knows about Hamlet, she
probably thinks he's a bit of a wanker,

an English-speaking Dane too old
to live at home who talks to skulls.
The Dutch man in the yellow vest

leaves. Let the report-writing begin.
Let Conor and McCarthy prepare for
takeoff. Let the leg to Dublin commence.


hans ostrom 2019

My Location Can't Be Found

I asked my phone where I was.
I mean, I knew where I was
according to old customs
but I wanted to know my location
according to rules set out
by our minders, the satellites.

The phone said "your location
can't be found." I didn't care
where I was anymore. I cared
that things seemed to be going
all right, what with my still
breathing and all. My phone

was not connected to the line
on which I thought I was. The
Great Online. What's more
chaotic than connectivity?
Ask your phone. Its answer
will be evasive.


hans ostrom 2019