Haiku Flu

too sad, haiku, you
have the flu & your
fevered syllables shiver



hans ostrom 2018

Peckish Muse

Should Muse want to munch,
pre-lunch, on a haiku,
fix a syllable-snack


hans ostrom 2018

I Thought Broth

I'm trying to understand
why I'm writing about broth.
Was it your idea?

I thought broth, and then--
here I am, wrangling
words about it.

Broth is good, right?
It's basic and pays
due respect to water.

The word itself, Broth--
excellent. Could even
represent a Nordic figure--

Broth, son of Erik the
Ambivalent. You know,
I think I'll leave it there,

bring this broth boat
back to port beside a warm
and salty sea.


hans ostrom 2018

Good News: You're Out of Touch

Because now it's all connected,
because now it's all infected
with connectivity, parasiting itself,
surveilling every person, place, and thing, you

don't feel connected, nor do you
especially want to. Your data's connected
very well indeed, not you. There
goes human culture, rocketing

off, and you're staying behind
in your material here, although you fake
living virtually very well. You feel
solitary but not sad. It's a relief

to be not interested in what it's all
coming to, whatever it's coming to,
and who would know, given the fact
and farce that human culture hurtles

with indifference to consequences.
It's virtually like standing in an empty town,
which the residents abandoned. Your
data's off partying with them. Sometimes

it reports back. The town, an existential
cocoon, does this thing that no one and
no thing does anymore. It leaves you
alone. Not heavenly, but nice.


hans ostrom 2018

Betty's Version of Time

Every death shatters time. For instance,
Betty, 92 years old, died, eased (we tell
ourselves) out on a morphine drip. Her
consciousness housed a vast museum

of time with complex installations composed
of fantastic materials perception had gathered
and memory had refined into alloys. There
were fabrics woven of intimacies, light,

fear, houseplants, brooms, secret beliefs,
desires, cooking, laughing, parenting, and
itching. Neuro-video loops played on angled
surfaces. Betty's sense of Betty

powered the place, a generator deep
in the basement. It all collapsed in an instant
just after 3:00 p.m. one day. Betty's magnificent
version of time, gone.


hans ostrom 2018

What Would Bukowski Write?

I wonder what Bukowski would be writing
now. More Bukowski poems, of course.
Rooted in his life, some stuff made up,
who cares, and then, in a line anywhere
in the poem, a statement strikes like a snake.
You get an insight not offered up as one.
It tears into you. His poems usually ignore

the wider world beyond San Pedro
and other Hank haunts, as if the world,
because it was so stupid and mean,
wasn't worth his time, and it isn't,
and it's getting worse. Maybe he would

have said something about Trump, though--
how low down, dirty, and mean he is.
A pimp. A psychopath--the kind that kicks
a sleeping drunk on The Row to show off
to his friends, other rich boys. Kick and laugh.
The kind that deserves to end up
on the losing side of a brawl one night,
knocked out, beaten, bloody, and down,
nobody gleeful about it but lots of people
feeling like it was an exorcism.


hans ostrom 2018

Recovering Vikings

Me and my friends rowed and sailed
from Scandinavia to Newfoundland
(your names for these places) without
a proper compass, adequate outerwear,
good hygiene, enough jokes, and
sufficient nutrition. We fought off
parasites, boils, and madness. This
happened in the 10th century or so--
your system of time. We're still trying
to recover. At an undisclosed location.


hans ostrom 2018