Frustration Station

At Frustration Station, crates

of bad karma get off-loaded,

vats of bile sit in storage, and

tickets turn to paste.  Conductors

have called a halt. Engineers

weep, and tunnels belch hot wind.

Departures and arrivals melt

into one immobile blob.  Turnstiles

turn into empty gun-barrels aimed

at one another. Vermin gnaw

wires of  ambition.  Only the fiddler

playing for oily coins is happy.

These faces, these faces, these

faces twist toward scream.  

Hans Ostrom, 2012

"A Chromatic Passing-Note," by Kingsley Amis

The Commonplace Sage

The sage on the mountain's a commonplace
sage. He's suspicious of gurus. He invites
you to spend only what you have, buy
no more than you need.  The commonplace

sage tells poets they're only as good
as their latest poem. A laurel's just
a shrub. The sage says if you want
to argue politics, debate yourself.

Sage suggests you re-familiarize
yourself with arithmetic, popular
music, and the software known
as Crap Detector 2.0.  Thinks

you might want to find the good
sense you misplaced when you
were a big deal there for a while.
This common sage sings a tune

or two, and wow: here comes a
herd of memories across a neon
pasture, and the needed card
floats up on the river, and

Frank Zappa clowns around in

heaven with Steve Allen's toupé.

Hans Ostrom, 2012

People Who Go Fishing

We sit. We stand. We walk
and wade and float and wait.
We work with things
from a diminutive realm:

string, bits of cloth, feathers,
miniature coins and jewelry,
lead pearls, worms, tiny eggs,
eyelets, small wheels, thin sticks.

Like psychologists, geologists,
and those obsessed with Hell,
we're obsessed with a submerged
dominion, about which we invent
myths, toward which we harbor
resentments, and into which
we cast gleaming desires.
We are deceivers of water-creatures.
We are lords of the sky-world.

We do not travel water to get somewhere.
To us, Odysseus was an abject fool.
Our world is lyric, not epic.  Ahab
was a reckless tourist. Jonah was bait.
And yes, we know whales aren't fish,
so be quiet.  Ssshhh! Did you hear that?
Did you feel that? We live for small
signs of animated resistance, for
the life on the line.  No, it is not
time to go. There is plenty of light left.


Hans Ostrom, 2012

Hiram Goes to Cafe Fear

(another in a series of "Hiram" poems)

Hiram Goes To Café Fear

Hiram thinks, “Here I am sitting inside

my shirt, shoes, and trousers, on a chair

at a table in a café.  I am afraid

of dying.  Also of nothing.  I tell

a waitress what I want for lunch.

She brings it.  I eat it, holding off

fear for a while.  I don’t know

who or why I am.  I am aware

of sitting, afraid, inside my clothes

and body.  This is me, I think. 

So this is me and this my fear.”

Hans Ostrom, 2012

Spiders' Migration

(re-posting a seasonal poem)


Spiders' Migration

Northern Hemisphere, September: spiders

come inside.  They slip through seams

to here, where summer seems to them

to spend the winter.  Their digits tap out

code on hardwood floors.  They rappel

from ceilings on out-spooled filaments

of mucous, measuring the place.  Sometimes

they stay just still.  Paused.  Poised.

It’s not as if spiders wait for us

to watch them, or even as if they

wait.  Rather, octavian motion

is so easy, syncopated, and several

that stillness surely exhilarates spiders

just arriving from the Northern Hemisphere.

It’s time for us to enter equal days and

equal nights, to pluck the filament between

fear of and fascination with spiders

moving in.

Hans Ostrom, 2012

This Happens To Be It

All right, thought Hiram,
this happens to be it--
what is real. I am
walking home on a sidewalk,
and I am drunk,
and I am passing by
a twenty-foot boat
that is situated
between the sidewalk
and someone's yard,
and sophisticated engines
driving cars
are passing me,
and I look at my distorted
shadow exactly
as I did when I was seven
years old: it is
that elongated,
legs-go-forever
shadow.  And I am:
so what? And I
am walking home,
knowing the way,
what is home (?),
what is the way (?),
is this what is (?),
and I must go on
as if this is what is,
and I keep walking.


Hans Ostrom, 2012

Saloon Statment

You know (she said),
it's very important
to remember
the difference between
getting crazy
and
just being
a little
bit
drunk,
okay?



Hans Ostrom, 2012

A Poet's Real Fear

There is
so much time to say
something and
so little
to say.


Hans Ostrom, 2012

"Proof," by Brendan Kennelly

Poem: Not Safe For Work?

Not Safe For Work?

I'll tell you what's
not safe for work,
says the waitress dead
on her feet;
the roofer in 104 degree
heat; the
truck driver, fire
fighter, soldier,
foundry worker,
heat-vent installer.

I'll tell you what's
not safe
for work, says
the warehouse-worker, the
unveiled woman, the
veiled woman, oil-
driller, welder,
seamstress, factory-
worker. What's

not safe for work is
work.


Hans Ostrom, 2012

Found Poem: Followed

the new sexy
you
is following
you

would you
like to follow
the new sexy
you?


hans ostrom

Found Poem: Content

your content
will
return
shortly.


--hans ostrom

"Could Be," by Langston Hughes

"Swift Month," by Denise Levertov

Commissioned Sonnet

Going through old computer-files and -documents, I found a sonnet I'd written that had been commissioned.  Someone from the Politics and Government Department where I teach (U. of Puget Sound) had asked me to write a poem to be read at their departmental graduation-gathering.  This was in 2008.

About all I can say for the sonnet is that it is worth at least what they paid me for it, nothing.

I thought a sonnet--or some traditional form--was appropriate for the occasion. Every so often, I like to write a "commissioned" thing.  It's an interesting challenge.

Commencement Bay is the name of the harbor next to Tacoma.


Sonnet: To Graduating Seniors in Politics and Government

We’ve been the captains of your classes here,

The admirals of your splendid senior theses.

Today we are mere ensigns of good cheer

As you depart these arches, bricks, and trees.

Your learning is your cargo. Politics

And Government’s the dock from which you sail.

The world out there is one we hope you’ll fix.

May warm and fairly traded winds prevail.

Now, after several years at Puget Sound,

You’ll voyage from your own Commencement Bay

To ports where possibilities abound.

With pride we raise a toast to you and say:

In governing your lives, be politic

And always vote for wisdom—that’s the trick.

Hans Ostrom, 2008, 2012

"One," by Langston Hughes