out of the moonlight rode the tall grasshopper

history

          is

  all knotted up.

inactivity is active interactive interactive

i like

         dirt

hans ostrom 2018

These Awful Times

leaves make light
bright green. hate makes US
power White. these awful times



hans ostrom 2018

College Test in May

students see the test:
a contract with memory.
sunlight in windows




hans ostrom 2018

Cold April

unfriendly sky
new garden leaves shiver
the crows flap hard against the wind


hans ostrom 2018

American Rust

White Supremacy is like rust.
It never stops devouring
American structures.
It never gets eradicated.


hans ostrom 2018

Saint Anonymous

I pray to Saint Anonymous,
a martyr without publicity.

Anon's the patron saint
of the perplexed, who never

quite manage to move past
confusion to reach rudimentary

theological questions, let alone
answers. When I pray to St.

Anonymous, I imagine a mildly
fretful face staring at me,

suggesting neither comfort nor
salvation but not-so-merely

sympathy, which is the most
of what's available given

the circumstances in which we
the perplexed find ourselves.


hans ostrom 2018

More Lies

Some more lies, then:
today in a fabricated storm,
clothes fell from the sky.
The tiniest of birds flew
through my eye into my
brain, which dreams of
the bird every night now
in jail: I am. I have been
arrested for false imaginings.
I use state-invoiced spoons
to play the bars like a xylophone
hoping someone will answer.


hans ostrom 2018