Here is a poem by Robert Bridges I don't remember encountering before. Sometimes when I see a title like "Winter Nightfall" above a poem by a relatively conventional poet, I lower my expectations, as I did this time. I was pleasantly surprised, beginning in line 3, with ". . . nothing tells the place/Of the setting sun." These lines suggested that Bridges was taking a hard look at the scene, a scene in which, presumably because of English mist, fog, clouds, and overall murk, no one can foretell where the sun will set; the murkiness just dims. At any rate, the poem:
Winter Nightfall
by Robert Bridges
THE day begins to droop,—
Its course is done:
But nothing tells the place
Of the setting sun.
The hazy darkness deepens,
And up the lane
You may hear, but cannot see,
The homing wain.
An engine pants and hums
In the farm hard by:
Its lowering smoke is lost
In the lowering sky.
The soaking branches drip,
And all night through
The dropping will not cease
In the avenue.
A tall man there in the house
Must keep his chair:
He knows he will never again
Breathe the spring air:
His heart is worn with work;
He is giddy and sick
If he rise to go as far
As the nearest rick:
He thinks of his morn of life,
His hale, strong years;
And braves as he may the night
Of darkness and tears.
I especially appreciate the subtle combination of a rural and an urban or suburban scene--farm and avenue. For me, the poem also slides easily into its consideration of the old man.
In the neighborhood we lived in previously, a married couple occupied a house across the street, and the woman's father lived with them. He was living with a respiratory disease, and he died not long after we moved there. His son in law told me that the old man believed that as long as he could walk around a bit (including crossing the street to get the mail) and, most importantly, sit in "his" chair, he would be all right; he wouldn't die. One day, of course, he had to be moved from the chair to a bed. I thought of this man when I read Bridges' poem, and of the way almost all of us construct a private calculus, whereby if we do X (keep sitting up in a chair), then Y will continue as it always has.
Bridges now is best know for his friendship with Gerard Manley Hopkins and for his having helped insure that Hopkins' poems got published. In their lifetimes, Bridges was much the better known poet than Hopkins.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Gratitude
Concerning Gratitude
Gratitude--that's a tough one, easy
to fake, or to ruin even when you're
not pretending. It isn't the same
as feeling lucky, and when you
express it, you should feel as if there's
plenty more left in the pond. Wait.
I shouldn't speak for anyone but me.
I feel as if gratitude isn't just
liking what's come my way but
marveling that I came this way
& that there is a way.
I feel as if gratitude isn't
an inventory of tools, jewelry,
machines, money, and enemies.
I don't think it's taking stock,
recording victories, or even,
heaven forbid, counting blessings.
--Nothing against accounting,
but gratitude's not a ledger.
I get this idea of the whole, and,
yes, I know what I just wrote's
as vague as fog. Gratitude
makes me kind of quiet--
and careful, because it's easy
to let slip away, gratitude.
It seems to be a large but delicate
emotion--yes, warm inside,
true enough, but cool to the touch.
Hans Ostrom
Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Change
"Change" is in the air, I mean the word, amplified by microphones, broadcast by networks.
Obama and McCain both represent change, according to their campaigns. The credit-crisis is alleged to foretell enormous changes in global economics.
Last week, when the market "crashed"--it didn't really crash; otherwise, it couldn't have glided a bit higher this week--I told a colleague that, if the stock-market gets really awful, all people will have left is change (you know, quarters, pennies). Okay, so it wasn't a very good joke. But I can report that he chuckled.
After either Obama or McCain become president, I wouldn't mind if he sought to rein in the powers of the Executive Branch, not just as expanded by Bush II but by presidents since and including Roosevelt. I'd like the shared-power concept (not really a balance of power) embedded in the Constitution to be effected more greatly. This is a kind of change that would please me. I'd like a lot more, and more transparent, judicial and congressional and private oversight of corporations, banks, and surveillance-organizations, including a review of how civil liberties have, arguably, been eroded.
In that spirit, and without veering into non-clinical paranoia, I did notice that an army brigade had been redeployed from Iraq to the U.S. to join the newly created Northern Command. That is, the 3rd army isn't just coming home from a tour; they're being redeployed to a nation called the U.S. Bush II created this Northern Command. Is he preparing for martial law? Is that an outrageous question? I don't know the answer to either of these questions. That I don't know the answer springs, I hope, from ignorance, and not from concern that is somehow valid. I can live with my ignorance. I'm used to that. I'm much less comfortable with the possibility of martial law, or, less dramatically, with the concept of a Northern Command. Anyway, here's a link to a discussion of that redeplyoment:
http://www.kinism.net/index.php/forums/viewthread/397/
The redeployment bears on the issue of the "posse comitatus" statutes, and that issue goes all the way back to the brokered presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes, who effectively ended Reconstruction. It's a wicked web, pax Robert Burns.
Anyway, all this talk of change, as alteration or as quarters and dimes, led to a poem:
Unsparing Change
Ritual, routine, and regulation distract
us from noticing the universe is never the
same, is reconstructed every second or less.
That King's Boulevard intersects with
Alpine Avenue is a sad wee show of stasis,
reminiscent of the joke Joe told every Friday
at the tavern before he lost his mind and the joke
and the tavern burned down. Every day,
every human's supposed to act like one
not bewildered by constant crashing change.
Sometimes we pull off this performance
of counter-reality to an audience of one or two,
or fifteen or more. Otherwise, nothing much
disguises disintegration, space's silent
screaming alteration, time's vulgar variety
show starring rot, riot, and ruin. This
is not a happy poem, but I'm determined
to be more upbeat, but not beaten up, I
hope, later today, when things will have changed.
Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom
Obama and McCain both represent change, according to their campaigns. The credit-crisis is alleged to foretell enormous changes in global economics.
Last week, when the market "crashed"--it didn't really crash; otherwise, it couldn't have glided a bit higher this week--I told a colleague that, if the stock-market gets really awful, all people will have left is change (you know, quarters, pennies). Okay, so it wasn't a very good joke. But I can report that he chuckled.
After either Obama or McCain become president, I wouldn't mind if he sought to rein in the powers of the Executive Branch, not just as expanded by Bush II but by presidents since and including Roosevelt. I'd like the shared-power concept (not really a balance of power) embedded in the Constitution to be effected more greatly. This is a kind of change that would please me. I'd like a lot more, and more transparent, judicial and congressional and private oversight of corporations, banks, and surveillance-organizations, including a review of how civil liberties have, arguably, been eroded.
In that spirit, and without veering into non-clinical paranoia, I did notice that an army brigade had been redeployed from Iraq to the U.S. to join the newly created Northern Command. That is, the 3rd army isn't just coming home from a tour; they're being redeployed to a nation called the U.S. Bush II created this Northern Command. Is he preparing for martial law? Is that an outrageous question? I don't know the answer to either of these questions. That I don't know the answer springs, I hope, from ignorance, and not from concern that is somehow valid. I can live with my ignorance. I'm used to that. I'm much less comfortable with the possibility of martial law, or, less dramatically, with the concept of a Northern Command. Anyway, here's a link to a discussion of that redeplyoment:
http://www.kinism.net/index.php/forums/viewthread/397/
The redeployment bears on the issue of the "posse comitatus" statutes, and that issue goes all the way back to the brokered presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes, who effectively ended Reconstruction. It's a wicked web, pax Robert Burns.
Anyway, all this talk of change, as alteration or as quarters and dimes, led to a poem:
Unsparing Change
Ritual, routine, and regulation distract
us from noticing the universe is never the
same, is reconstructed every second or less.
That King's Boulevard intersects with
Alpine Avenue is a sad wee show of stasis,
reminiscent of the joke Joe told every Friday
at the tavern before he lost his mind and the joke
and the tavern burned down. Every day,
every human's supposed to act like one
not bewildered by constant crashing change.
Sometimes we pull off this performance
of counter-reality to an audience of one or two,
or fifteen or more. Otherwise, nothing much
disguises disintegration, space's silent
screaming alteration, time's vulgar variety
show starring rot, riot, and ruin. This
is not a happy poem, but I'm determined
to be more upbeat, but not beaten up, I
hope, later today, when things will have changed.
Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Random Suggestions
I cooked a lot today, making some dinners for the week ahead. With profound apologies to vegetarians and vegans, I must admit that one of the dishes is an old-fashioned beef stew.
I also took a walk (the expression must puzzle those new to English: "take a walk?") on the sharp but sunny slope of West Tacoma.
The combination of cooking and walking seems to have jumbled my mind into coming up with some extremely random suggestions, which should probably be taken with blocks, not grains, of salts.
1. If someone falls out of love with you, assume they've experienced a terrible lapse in judgment. Therefore, as you place a lifelong curse on them, do remember to temper justice with mercy.
2. When you're driving a car, make as few left turns as possible. Very little good comes from left turns in the arena of driving automobiles.
3. If you're reading a poem that seems especially difficult, assume it's easy, accessble, and it will become so. It works every time, or at least every 9 out of 10 times.
4. Don't attempt to smash an oppressive state because oppressive states are usually very good at smashing back. It's like trying to bite an alligator into submission. Instead, think of termites. They get together and eat whole mansions. Bring down an oppressive state in small, relatively unnoticed morsels--relentlessly, peacefully, efficiently.
5. There is no logical reason to believe in God. Or is there? Whether you've sorted this one out or not, do pay attention to an essential insoluble mystery in life.
6. Make it your goal to get through life without blowing up anything or anyone. Live explosion-free, if possible.
7. Witttgenstein was wrong about the cat/language issue. If lion and other cats could speak, we would understand them. They would insist upon it. After all, as little as they speak now, they will us to understand this communication.
8. Money is not the root of all evil. It's the root of some evil, and it's the fruit of other evil. Hatred is the garden-plot of evil. Don't fertilize it, whatever you do.
9. Buy or pick a lot of apples, and make your own applesauce: water, sugar [or sugar substitute], cinnamon, and nutmeg. Bring to a boil and then simmer. (I prefer chunky applesauce). Your life will be much improved by this activity and by the resulting sustenance. --Oh, I assume you know you should wash and peel the apples before cutting them into manageable slices. You knew that.
10. If someone is extremely rude to you, they are most likely fatally flawed and/or overcome with a feeling of power. If possible, let them pass on into the rest of the difficulty they have created for themselves.
11. Assign a number to how important you believe you are. An example is 10. To determine a rating that more closely relates to your real importance, divide by two and subtract one--reducing your importance in this example to 4. Anyway, the lower number is always more accurate than the higher. It's kind of like a law of physics.
12. Choose at least one instance or circumstance of injustice and work to reduce or eliminate it, preferably working with others. Participate in the erosion of injustice.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Like a Simile, As a Sign
Like a Simile, As a Sign
Briefly astonishing, then gone, the semiotician
vanished like a gray fox at dusk. Like
a tectonic plate, the structuralist's bowels
shifted. She quaked. Like the moon,
the tides, the sun, and the seasons,
the rhetorician repeated himself
conventionally. As the banker dismissed
the janitor's dignity with a sneer, so
the academic Marxist derided poetry
as bourgeois scribbling, even if
practiced by a welder. As the feminist
lauded the recovery of a lost novel,
so the waitress frowned to see the size
of the gratuity this scholar left. Like
the universe, there is no thing. There
is no thing like the universe.
Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom
Thursday, October 9, 2008
For Aunt Nevada
One of my aunts, Nevada, died today. Although her name was initially Nevada Ostrom and then Nevada Lewis, the first name she went by was Babe, which sounds kind of funny in this (or any) day and age, and I forget the origin of the nickname. But as I've opined before, you wouldn't think a woman named Nevada would need a nickname of any kind, let alone Babe.
She was a rugged, stubborn sort. She started the only bar-fight I was ever in (and ever hope to be in). Some visitors, bikers, from out of town were in the bar, cursing. She told them to stop cursing (somewhat ironic, since when she was not in a public establishment, she cursed), and one of them called her a c**t, so she slapped him as hard as she could, and the fight was on. My mother, father, brother, and I were in the dining room of the establishment, and my uncle came to get us, telling my father that he needed his help, but giving no details. (Thanks very much.)
So we all went into the bar, where chairs and fists were already flying. My brother and I pulled one biker off some innocent neutral party. My father was knocked under a table, but he got up, grabbed a biker, put him in a bear-hug, and backed up to a wall. The fellow couldn't escape my father's grip, my father's back was to the wall., where he could survey the battle and use the biker as a shield, if necessary. Excellent strategy and tactics.
Eventually it all ended up outside, where my uncle knocked out one of the bikers with a punch that was almost Hollywood-like. Eventually, the sheriff showed up (law enforcement moves at its own pace in the Sierra Nevada). My mother mortified one of the bikers by lecturing him. I felt for the guy. He was a biker from the Bay Area, and this woman was giving him a lecture about civility. I remember her wagging a finger at him and asking, not rhetorically, "Why do you come to our town and start trouble?" He had no answer.
The sheriff took the bikers to the county seat and arrested them, chiefly because there were outstanding warrants on them in the Bay Area. (I like that term, "outstanding warrants"; it makes me wonder what a "truly excellent" warrant is.) No one associated with Aunt Nevada's side of the conflict was arrested, partly because the sheriff had known our family for 30 years (home-field advantage), and partly because the large biker Nevada slapped might have had trouble asserting that he had to slug several men to defend himself from her. I do remember that, for the first time in my life, I later had to fill out an "affadavit." At any rate, wee went home and cleaned up. No one was seriously injured. But no one ever let my Aunt Nevada forget that she had acted somewhat precipitously, especially when she and my uncle were outnumbered in the bar at the time. My Aunt Nevada remained unrepentant. She asserted that she had behaved correctly. No one in the family seemed able to mount persuasive counter-arguments.
In one of those strange coincidences, I'd been working on a poem involving Aunt Nevada just last night. I don't like to make too much of such things, but it does seem a little uncanny, especially since I had not heard anything about her health having suddenly failed. So it goes.
The Compost-Lesson
Aunt Nevada showed me
a compost-heap between
the ranch-house and her garden
when I was 8. I don't remember
what she said. I remember that
she said, talking to me as if
I were older than 8. She was trying
to explain how composts worked
and their relation to gardens.
The sounds of her explaining:
these I heard and liked. They
were human noise in a language
I understood. She was an aunt
providing linguistic nutrients
to a nephew. I remember seeing
a cracked white egg-shell
and coffee-grounds in the compost.
I remember a strong compost-
smell--not unpleasant; earth-perfume.
I saw fat red worms writhe
as if they were having bad
worm-dreams. Around the meadow
where the Zergas had built that ranch,
conifer-covered Sierra mountains stood
stately in full sunlight. Wind made leaves
of cornstalks in Aunt Nevada's garden gossip.
Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom
She was a rugged, stubborn sort. She started the only bar-fight I was ever in (and ever hope to be in). Some visitors, bikers, from out of town were in the bar, cursing. She told them to stop cursing (somewhat ironic, since when she was not in a public establishment, she cursed), and one of them called her a c**t, so she slapped him as hard as she could, and the fight was on. My mother, father, brother, and I were in the dining room of the establishment, and my uncle came to get us, telling my father that he needed his help, but giving no details. (Thanks very much.)
So we all went into the bar, where chairs and fists were already flying. My brother and I pulled one biker off some innocent neutral party. My father was knocked under a table, but he got up, grabbed a biker, put him in a bear-hug, and backed up to a wall. The fellow couldn't escape my father's grip, my father's back was to the wall., where he could survey the battle and use the biker as a shield, if necessary. Excellent strategy and tactics.
Eventually it all ended up outside, where my uncle knocked out one of the bikers with a punch that was almost Hollywood-like. Eventually, the sheriff showed up (law enforcement moves at its own pace in the Sierra Nevada). My mother mortified one of the bikers by lecturing him. I felt for the guy. He was a biker from the Bay Area, and this woman was giving him a lecture about civility. I remember her wagging a finger at him and asking, not rhetorically, "Why do you come to our town and start trouble?" He had no answer.
The sheriff took the bikers to the county seat and arrested them, chiefly because there were outstanding warrants on them in the Bay Area. (I like that term, "outstanding warrants"; it makes me wonder what a "truly excellent" warrant is.) No one associated with Aunt Nevada's side of the conflict was arrested, partly because the sheriff had known our family for 30 years (home-field advantage), and partly because the large biker Nevada slapped might have had trouble asserting that he had to slug several men to defend himself from her. I do remember that, for the first time in my life, I later had to fill out an "affadavit." At any rate, wee went home and cleaned up. No one was seriously injured. But no one ever let my Aunt Nevada forget that she had acted somewhat precipitously, especially when she and my uncle were outnumbered in the bar at the time. My Aunt Nevada remained unrepentant. She asserted that she had behaved correctly. No one in the family seemed able to mount persuasive counter-arguments.
In one of those strange coincidences, I'd been working on a poem involving Aunt Nevada just last night. I don't like to make too much of such things, but it does seem a little uncanny, especially since I had not heard anything about her health having suddenly failed. So it goes.
The Compost-Lesson
Aunt Nevada showed me
a compost-heap between
the ranch-house and her garden
when I was 8. I don't remember
what she said. I remember that
she said, talking to me as if
I were older than 8. She was trying
to explain how composts worked
and their relation to gardens.
The sounds of her explaining:
these I heard and liked. They
were human noise in a language
I understood. She was an aunt
providing linguistic nutrients
to a nephew. I remember seeing
a cracked white egg-shell
and coffee-grounds in the compost.
I remember a strong compost-
smell--not unpleasant; earth-perfume.
I saw fat red worms writhe
as if they were having bad
worm-dreams. Around the meadow
where the Zergas had built that ranch,
conifer-covered Sierra mountains stood
stately in full sunlight. Wind made leaves
of cornstalks in Aunt Nevada's garden gossip.
Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom
I Liked Those Days
[pictured: a potato bug]
Good Ground
I liked those days when I kept my gaze
close to the ground, although I'm sorry
about that sound I repeated in line one.
I saw black beetles, which gave off an
awful stench, and I saw potato-bugs,
large, delicate, decorated, slow--
almost like Art Deco. Yes, I saw
salamanders, those wee amphibians,
amost too gentle for Earth, connoisseurs
of shadow. Sight of scorpions and
black-widow spiders injected me
with terrible lore and jolts of adrenalin.
I saw ants hauling dead moths like
stiff canvas sails, and I watched ant-lions
waiting for prey to slip down the side
of the terrible sandy funnel. I read
Earth closely. It's the best book ever,
after all, especially when you're a kid,
even if you're a kid who likes to read.
I sneaked up on the frog pond and watched
frogs copulate, all of them at once, and
what a cacaphony! Later I saw the
tadpoles, which grew legs--freakier
than any horror movie Hollywood
had to offer the National Broadcasting
Company. I learned to stand tall and notice
humans almost exclusively. This is known
as "joining society" or "growing up" or
whatever term you prefer. It's one of
those necessary things. Life may be
better spent with one's nose close to
soil and stone, eyeballing bugs and
all that stuff. No, I don't mean becoming
a "naturalist." That would ruin everything.
This isn't nostalgia. It's just preference.
Spiders, insects, worms, amphibians,
reptiles, and birds delivered the goods
curiosity sent for from the mail-order
catalogue, is all I'm saying. These
creatures did some weird, interesting
shit, just as a part of their ordinary
day, okay? I'm an adult now, no
major complaints today, but I do
wish for children that they may live
near interesting ground and be
allowed to read it if they want to.
Hans Ostrom Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom
Highly Recommended Documentary
I highly recommend the new documentary video by Hyperborean, whose blog appears on my list of blogs and sites I follow. The documentary concerns organized protests at the DNC and RNC nominating conventions and has some extraordinary "footage" (an old film-term, I realize) of plainly excessive police-over-reaction, among other things, but you can judge that issue for yourself, of course.
A link:
http://aeconomics.blogspot.com/2008/10/our-documentary-is-done-watch-it-here.html
Well done, Joe.
A link:
http://aeconomics.blogspot.com/2008/10/our-documentary-is-done-watch-it-here.html
Well done, Joe.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Capitolism
Capitolism
He was a capitolist. He believed
everyone should live and work
in dome-capped buildings, however
modest such structures might be.
He believed conveyances should
be built with small transparent
domes attached. He himself
wore a bowler hat.
Domes, he believed, shaped
human will, calmed spirits,
made people look and think
up, aspire. He opposed
commonism in its several
architectural forms--flat
utility, corporate boxiness,
and most especially predictable
decorative tricks. He extolled
capitolism, its mysteries of
circle and hemisphere, curve
and line, boldness and modesty.
He deemed domes essential,
regarded Karl Marx and Adam
Smith as having trudged down
blind corridors of economics, when
they should have been looking. Up.
Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom
Clothing
In the house we lived in the longest in the Sierra Nevada, the main living quarters were on the second floor, which also had a porch. My father attached one large pulley to one of the porch-posts and another to a pine tree a hundred feet away. Then he threaded a cable through the pulley-wheels, and my mother used this to dry clothes on. It remains the longest clothesline I've encountered, and of course my father had not calculated how much strength was required to push the loaded line out and pull it back, so some strength was required of my mother and us. Children of the Great Depression, my parents owned an electric dryer but almost never used it.
I have not done so yet, but I'd like to track down the biochemical and olfactory-biological reasons why clothes dried outside by breeze and sunshine universally smell so appealing to people. I would hazard that cotton thusly dried may smell especially good. With regard to the odor of the dried cloth, what do the sun and the breeze do that a machine-dryer doesn't?
This has all been a circuitious introduction to a poem about clothing, except the poem has almost nothing (but at least something) to do with this drying business I've been discussing. --So it goes with poems, introductions, clothing, and blogs.
The Clothing
Laundry in a basket still wore
some of sun's expenditure
and breeze's perfume.
Eventually, we put on these
washed things. They led us
back out into sunlight, into
lakes of air. We wear
the repetitions of our days,
dress our bodies with our ways,
fold clothes of our woven
consciousness, put them
in closets of memory, hang
them in dreams, where they
re-costume themselves
in carnivals of synaptic light.
People from an old civilization
called Time sit beside a slow
river, rubbing wet cloth with
stones, paying no attention to
the gods who splash and cavort
nearby, who rise from the river,
and cloth themselves in sky.
Hans Ostrom Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom
Weather Forecasts That Are More Than Unpleasant
Before I launch into the subject at hand, I must mention a new blog I like, Poefrika:
http://poefrika.blogspot.com/
Some nice postings there, and the person has multiple blogs. He just posted a very witty short poem by Amiri Baraka.
....In less exciting news, I've always been attracted to the patter and rhetoric of weather-persons, especially in the Pacific Northwest, where the weather-persons on TV often have to invent weather-variety where there is none. They also often use the term "sun-breaks." In California, the same phenomenon is called "cloudy."
I played around with slightly more sinister forecasts:
Tomorrow calls for rain, followed by urine in the afternoon. (This is probably too unpleasant to be funny. Or just unfunny.)
Thursday looks like patchy morning fog, followed by a rash over your entire body in the evening hours.
By this time tomorrow, we can expect Hell to be cooler than Earth.
Partly cloudy in the afternoon, with absolutely no chance of meeting that special person with whom you might like to spend the rest of your life.
Snow in the higher elevations, turning into psychosis in the foothills.
A slight chance of rain, but no chance that your roommate will bathe within the next 10 days.
********
This morning, a colleague reminded me that Abe Lincoln, self-deprecatingly, once said, "By the time you're 35, you've earned the face you have."
This is a roundabout way of saying that I hope tomorrow brings you weather you enjoy, whether (nyuk, nyuk) you think you've earned it, or your face, or not.
http://poefrika.blogspot.com/
Some nice postings there, and the person has multiple blogs. He just posted a very witty short poem by Amiri Baraka.
....In less exciting news, I've always been attracted to the patter and rhetoric of weather-persons, especially in the Pacific Northwest, where the weather-persons on TV often have to invent weather-variety where there is none. They also often use the term "sun-breaks." In California, the same phenomenon is called "cloudy."
I played around with slightly more sinister forecasts:
Tomorrow calls for rain, followed by urine in the afternoon. (This is probably too unpleasant to be funny. Or just unfunny.)
Thursday looks like patchy morning fog, followed by a rash over your entire body in the evening hours.
By this time tomorrow, we can expect Hell to be cooler than Earth.
Partly cloudy in the afternoon, with absolutely no chance of meeting that special person with whom you might like to spend the rest of your life.
Snow in the higher elevations, turning into psychosis in the foothills.
A slight chance of rain, but no chance that your roommate will bathe within the next 10 days.
********
This morning, a colleague reminded me that Abe Lincoln, self-deprecatingly, once said, "By the time you're 35, you've earned the face you have."
This is a roundabout way of saying that I hope tomorrow brings you weather you enjoy, whether (nyuk, nyuk) you think you've earned it, or your face, or not.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Who's Crazier, Who's Funnier?
Apparently there are two new cinematic satires out there, Bill Maher's funny (Maher hopes) nonfiction take on religion and some guy's feature-length "comedy," "American Carol," in which documentary-maker Michael Moore (a character based on him, that is) is given a Scrooge-like tour of what would have happened had the U.S. not fought in certain wars. The tour sounds more like the one George takes in It's A Wonderful Life, but oh well.
I won't see either of these movies because I'm boycotting Hollywood films. Just imagine how terrified Hollywood moguls must be of my boycott.
I don't think I'll even watch these films when they percolate down the electronic strata and end up on cable or "free" TV.
I think they'll be bad satire; that's the main problem. Long ago and far away, I wrote a Ph.D. dissertation on satire, and I almost remember some of what I wrote.
The satire of Moore will be (is) bad because he's not a worthy object of satire, which ridicules vice and/or folly. As satire ridicules, however, it implicitly asks to be judged by the worthiness, the heft, of its target. For example, Jonathan Swift took on all of England, if not all of humanity.
In the cinematic realm, Mel Brooks took on the entire hallowed genre of the Western, as well as taking on the issue of race in the U.S., in Blazing Saddles.
Let's assume you don't like Moore's documentaries or you don't think they're very good. Fine. They and he still aren't vicious and foolish enough to fuel funny, worthy satire. Also, Moore never argued against all U.S. wars, just the ones lots of people have doubts about. Also, even if he's misguided, he's not mean, at least not in the way Scrooge is. Moore's a successful film-maker, a big moose of a guy, and a person with opinions, most of which are about social class, not war. Maybe you could squeeze out a three-minute SNL sketch on him--something about Michael Moore's Hollywood entourage, or Michael Moore in Cannes. There are some humorous possibilities there. Or Michael Moore dating Paris Hilton? That might be funny. For a moment.
But for a feature-film-length satire, you need to think big. Think Dr. Strangelove. The guy who got the financial backing for "American Carol" must have leveraged some moguls who simply don't like Moore and think he's too lefty. Maybe some of them thought the scene he did with Charleton Heston (when Heston was already clearly a bit befuddled) was gratuitous. Who knows? But satirizing Michael Moore is like satirizing Bruce Springsteen. If you hate the documentaries or the music or are bugged by the success or something, just say so, in an email, a blog post, or a review. Not in a full-fledged satire, for heaven's sake. The genre doesn't work that way.
Maher's satire will fail for similar reasons. Religion is indeed big enough to satirize (many have done it well, including James Hogg), but Maher's gone after small targets like a Jesus impersonator and some village (in Ireland?) that still pays homage to some kind of figure of legend. In the one clip from the movie I've seen, the Jesus impersonator says to Maher, calmly, "What if you're wrong [about God]?" (Maher is an atheist, of course). Maher responds, "What if YOU'RE wrong?" I had exchanges like this with my brothers when we were adolescents. The exchanges were not the stuff of world-class satire.
Maher also apparently presents such revelations that some people of faith use their religion as an excuse to commit violence and even atrocities, and that some religious people are hypocritical. Next, I suppose, he will reveal that some politicians are insincere.
Apparently, Maher has a "theory" that (all?) people who believe in a religion or even in God have a mental disorder. If that's the case, he'd better hope there's a God. Also, who's crazier (and sadder)? Someone who goes to church once a week, finds some fellowship and contemplation, and then goes out for pancakes, or a middle-aged stand-up comic running around with a camera crew making fun of Jesus impersonators or arguing with people about religion?
In the realm of the religious, the ones that seem foolish and vicious enough to satirize are the extraordinarily wealthy pastors of mega-churches who literally preach "the gospel of wealth." Just imagine what Jesus would think of these clowns, or how Jonathan Swift (or Mel Brooks) would satirize them.
I'd rather see videos of Maher talking to smart people who write about religion, people like Garry Wills, Marcus Borg, Karen Armstrong, and so on. They all have sense of humor, and they know a massive amount about religion. Wills even wrote a book on the very religious and very funny G.K. Chesterton, devoutly Catholic, satirical in a most British way, inventive--really a kind of grandfather to the Monty Python folk, artistically speaking.
Maher attended Cornell, if memory serves, and he seems quite confident in his intellect and his sharp social criticism. He's a smart, hip guy. He'd probably have fun arguing with someone like Garry Wills, and it would probably be funnier than "Religuous," his movie, with a title that's not funny.
A better satiric target for Maher (not that he cares about, needs, or wants my advice) would be ABC and its parent company--the ones who fired him for saying that it took more courage to drive a car-bomb than to bomb a city from 30,000 feet (I'm paraphrasing). They fired him from a show called Politically Incorrect for making a comment that was politically incorrect not in the sense that reactionaries take the term (as something that would offend feminists or liberals), but that was politically incorrect because some advertisers pulled their money from his show. Media conglomerates. Corporations that fund TV shows. Now, there are some targets worthy of first-rate satire. (But I guess it would be hard to get backing for such a film in Hollywood. )
But everyday, ordinary religious people? Michael Moore? Whatever you think of them, they're just not vicious, foolish, and powerful enough to sustain satire. It's a genre-thing.
Full disclosure: I'm Catholic, having converted from a spiritual stew of atheism, agnosticism, and Zen about 8 years ago. I attend a progressive Jesuit parish. I've met several parishioners and Jesuits who seem funnier than Bill Maher, but that's not his fault. My parish just happens to have some humorous, ironic people in it. The parish does insane things like distribute large amounts of food to families in economic difficulties (the religion, or not, of the families is not relevant to their getting food. There isn't even a means test, so Bill Maher is welcome to a bag of groceries). Yes, of course there are 3 masses per weekend in which the parishioners believe bread and wine are inspirited. If you think that's irrational, you're right. Hence the term faith. No, the parishioners don't think God is an old man with a white beard who sits on a cloud and directs traffic (one of Maher's favorite jokes). Incidentally, of the best naturally talented satirists I know is a product of Jesuit education. Hmmmm.
But it's not a religion-thing. It's a genre-thing. Satirists need worthy targets.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Our Verbal Progress
I overheard a conversation between two students today. One was talking about how her cat was misbehaving, and the other was complaining about how much her dog licked her. The cat-person said, "I don't like dog-tongues. In fact, I find all tongues disgusting." I thought this was a remarkable statement, bold and fascinating.
I'm still pondering what to do with the statement, poetically or otherwise.
In the meantime, I've been thinking of "tongue" in the sense of language ("she speaks several tongues"), and that isn't a bad if old-fashioned synecdoche (if that's what it is; I often conflate metonymy and synecdoche), for although much more than the tongue is involved in speaking, the tongue is pretty crucial.
Our Verbal Progress
Before we were born,
we lived theoretically in the infinitive,
to live. Once incarnated,
we were conjugated, about
nine months after a conjugal
interaction. Conjugated:
I live, you live, he, she, it lives.
After we lived for a while,
we "used to go," "were thinking
of falling in love," "had been planning
to travel to Athens," "had once been
a highly regarded cello player,"
and so on.
Too soon we shall have used up
all occasions for needing the future
tense and shall rely on the past
tenses almost exclusively. Soon
thereafter, we will, being dead,
not require verbs, nor even pre-
positions. The infinitive to die
will house us foreover in our
re-unconjugated state, where
words spoken by tongues
shall not reach us, where we shall
exist in a state of supreme listening.
Hans Ostrom Copyright 2008
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Proverb Ambulance
Richard Brautigan (pictured) wrote a very funny poem called "Haiku Ambulance," and once I stole the title-concept from it and him and wrote a poem called "Zen Ambulance," which plays around with that infamous tree falling in the forest, etc.
For the second time, I'm pilfering Brautigan's concept, this time in connection to proverbs.
Proverb Ambulance
Don't put all of your baskets
on top of one egg, unless the year
is 1929, say, and you're in Vaudeville,
in need of money, playing the Pantages,
and have a basket-act. Look:
before you leap, ask yourself or
someone you trust, "Do I really
need to leap?" Haste makes waste,
but not as much of it as cruise-ships,
which sail slowly and stuff people
with food: you do the biology. Unless
someone asks you, "Incidentally,
was Rome built in 24 hours?" don't
say, "Rome wasn't built in a day."
"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool
me twice, and I advise you to sleep
with one eye closed." You dig?
Hans Ostrom Copyright 2008
A T-Town Sonnet
Sonnet: Tacoma
Tacoma's tough. That's what you need to know
To start to get to know the town that is
A city which is reticent to show
The world a worldly face. Indeed, fact is,
Tacoma tells you to your face, "I'm me.
I'm trains and cranes and barges by the Sound.
I'm labor, boss, protester, cop, army."
To find a city anxious to be crowned,
Take I-5 north to where Seatttle's fed
To bursting with paté of pride. It needs
To feel the pat of status on its head.
Seattle thinks that T-Town's in the weeds.
Seattle may day-dream that it's Par-ee.
"Take it or leave it," says T-Town. "I'm me."
Hans Ostrom Copyright 2008
What Jake Said
What Jake Said
I waited so long for my big break
to come along, I got used to doing
without one. Who needs
a bolt of recognition, thunderous
good fortune, or some timely
assistance anyway? I belong
to a loose group of toilers
and grinders, some mildly
befuddled never-minders
who work the job and show
up when Up says to show.
For all I know (not very much),
my big break drove by
in a long dark car and waved,
and I didn't notice because
I was bent to some task
and didn't even know to
ask if I might take a minute
and look up. Oh, well.
Like I care. My big break,
if it had come, might have
broken me anyway. Fuck it:
I'm here today and alive--
that's plenty. It's a break.
Hans Ostrom Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Concerning Joy
Poet Hayden Carruth died last week. I did not read and have not read a lot of his work, but what I did read was good, in my opinion. Also, he did seem to have one of those names that seemed manufactured just for a poet. He's considered an important American poet.
My most specific memory regarding him goes back to an evening maybe two decades ago when I was having dinner with three other poets, Lee Bassett, Sam Hamill (best or most recently known for the Poets Against the War project, but also a fine poet, translator, and publisher), and Madeline DeFrees. This was not long after Richard Hugo had died, and Madeline was angry about a bad review Carruth had written about Hugo--maybe it was about his collected poems. I don't know. I never tracked down the review. I just remember that Madeline, not the type to anger easily, was pretty miffed at Carruth's review, especially where it (according to her) had observed that Hugo "had no hear"--for poetry, that is. Hugo's poetry is deliberately clipped and sometimes purposely monotonous and/or staccato, but he had a great sense of language. My own view is that he was writing in the way he'd heard language when he was growing up, working class, Pacific Northwest. And he just leaned more toward the Anglo Saxon side of the language as opposed to the Latin side. Carruth probably just didn't get what Hugo was doing, but Hugo had studied with Roethke, after all, and Roethke was all about sound. If you've read Hugo's The Triggering Town, you know Hugo was almost all about sound, too.
To digress from the digression, the NY Times obituary (which I think I found online) of Carruth mentioned his once saying that he wrote a lot about loss, a statement that made me giggle because, well, don't we all write about loss, even people who don't write? Then I scolded myself for a) giggling and b) writing about loss too much myself. So I made one of those precipitous resolutions. I resolved to write about joy more. I don't know precisely why I chose joy as the opposite of loss when gain, possession, interest-accrued, or permanence would probably have been more reasonable choices as opposites to loss. Fulfilling the resolution hasn't gone all that well, but here's one poem, at least, allegedly on joy--with one of my classic, numbingly obvious titles, which Carruth probably would have hated, along with my poetry, although I doubt if he ever read even one by me, unless maybe one I had in Ploughshares. (Anyway, Mr. Carruth, I'm sorry you're dead.)
Concerning Joy
When an infant laughs,
especially at nothing,
joy has scrawled a note
for anyone to read
and get a giggle.
When people see someone
they love receive what's right,
joy juices a corpuscle of time.
When you sense that thing
move through you, the one
that feels as if your bones
just told a joke to your nerves,
which then told your feet
to dance (knowing full well
your feet ache) joy just might
have been nearby. Mercurial,
needed, and nimble,
as small as a thimble
and as big as a moon,
joy is, I'm telling you,
welcome most any time,
including midnight,
noon, and soon. I'm
saying something about
joy, okay? I'm not trying
to reproduce it, so don't
get all joyless on me. If
joy comes to you, let it.
If it doesn't, ask around.
See what you can find out.
Somebody has to know something.
Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom
My most specific memory regarding him goes back to an evening maybe two decades ago when I was having dinner with three other poets, Lee Bassett, Sam Hamill (best or most recently known for the Poets Against the War project, but also a fine poet, translator, and publisher), and Madeline DeFrees. This was not long after Richard Hugo had died, and Madeline was angry about a bad review Carruth had written about Hugo--maybe it was about his collected poems. I don't know. I never tracked down the review. I just remember that Madeline, not the type to anger easily, was pretty miffed at Carruth's review, especially where it (according to her) had observed that Hugo "had no hear"--for poetry, that is. Hugo's poetry is deliberately clipped and sometimes purposely monotonous and/or staccato, but he had a great sense of language. My own view is that he was writing in the way he'd heard language when he was growing up, working class, Pacific Northwest. And he just leaned more toward the Anglo Saxon side of the language as opposed to the Latin side. Carruth probably just didn't get what Hugo was doing, but Hugo had studied with Roethke, after all, and Roethke was all about sound. If you've read Hugo's The Triggering Town, you know Hugo was almost all about sound, too.
To digress from the digression, the NY Times obituary (which I think I found online) of Carruth mentioned his once saying that he wrote a lot about loss, a statement that made me giggle because, well, don't we all write about loss, even people who don't write? Then I scolded myself for a) giggling and b) writing about loss too much myself. So I made one of those precipitous resolutions. I resolved to write about joy more. I don't know precisely why I chose joy as the opposite of loss when gain, possession, interest-accrued, or permanence would probably have been more reasonable choices as opposites to loss. Fulfilling the resolution hasn't gone all that well, but here's one poem, at least, allegedly on joy--with one of my classic, numbingly obvious titles, which Carruth probably would have hated, along with my poetry, although I doubt if he ever read even one by me, unless maybe one I had in Ploughshares. (Anyway, Mr. Carruth, I'm sorry you're dead.)
Concerning Joy
When an infant laughs,
especially at nothing,
joy has scrawled a note
for anyone to read
and get a giggle.
When people see someone
they love receive what's right,
joy juices a corpuscle of time.
When you sense that thing
move through you, the one
that feels as if your bones
just told a joke to your nerves,
which then told your feet
to dance (knowing full well
your feet ache) joy just might
have been nearby. Mercurial,
needed, and nimble,
as small as a thimble
and as big as a moon,
joy is, I'm telling you,
welcome most any time,
including midnight,
noon, and soon. I'm
saying something about
joy, okay? I'm not trying
to reproduce it, so don't
get all joyless on me. If
joy comes to you, let it.
If it doesn't, ask around.
See what you can find out.
Somebody has to know something.
Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom
Friday, October 3, 2008
Oh, Nonsense
Some relatively serious cold rain hit the Pacific Northwest today, one of those firmly stated storms that bring undeniable closure to summer and summerish Fall. Not a bad day for some nonsense-verse, in my opinion, with a wee tip of the cap to Edward Lear (pictured here, an image of Hunt's portrait of him):
Why Oh My
How will they what,
And when will they how?
Who will they why,
And can they where now?
Why are they who?
And how can they when?
When are they there,
And what will you then?
I cannot why now.
Time wheres me so fast.
Who whats, and then some.
Why, this cannot last!
Lear-like wordplay is one sensible approach to nonsense verse. Another, I think, is to play around with a genre. Rather early in my life, I began hearing ballads and other kinds of story-songs that sometimes had dialogue--two characters "in" the song, that is. Burl Ives sang some of these, I remember. In some ways, Dylan's "Blowing in the Wind" riffs on that kind of song, as it asks questions and answers them; it's almost as if two kinds of people are speaking. Anyway, I decided to play around with that form.
Oh Ballad, Dear Ballad
"Oh father, dear father,
where did you go?"
"I got drunk and drove
the Ford into snow."
"Oh mother, dear mother
why do you cry?"
"'Cause I'm stuck at home
caring for you, that's why."
"Oh grannie, dear grannie
why are you so wise?"
"It's just a schtick, kiddo,
like rolling your eyes."
"Oh, God, greatest God,
do you listen to me?"
"You and six billion others,
omnisciently."
"Oh life, dear life,
what should I expect?"
"In good years, a job.
On good days, a check."
That's quite enough of this nonsense.
Hans Ostrom Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom
Sarah Palin, Cubist Painting
As Murray Edelman has asserted, politics is largely a matter of spectacle in the U.S. It is often optimally viewed as a performance of one kind or another, and the alleged differences between candidates or parties are often contrived or exaggerated for the sake of the performance, not for the sake of, say, people or problems or "solutions."
Oddly enough, I caught a glimpse of what Edelman means way back when I was 16 and attending something called Boys' State, a kind of mock-governmental conference sponsored by the American Legion. One male per high school in California would converge on Sacramento and play politics, annually, in the summer. We were all juniors in high school.
Ronald Reagan spoke to us assembled high-school junior males (who had just elected, as our "governor" and "lieutenant governor" two African Americans--that says something about the 1970s, but that's another story).
We sat in the auditorium and listened to a warm-up act, and then Reagan arrived: BAM! Photographic lamps went on, TV cameras materialized, he entered the auditorium, surrounded by an efficient entourage, shook hands, smiled, worked the crowed, smiling, smiling, got up on stage, said nothing but said it well, got off the stage, shook hands, worked the crowd, everything being filmed, BAM! out the door. It was a schtick. Of course, I was mightily impressed. He was our governor! But something in the back of my mind told me: I just saw a schtick.
I thought of this when I watched the "debate" between Biden and Palin last night. It was the oddest political spectacle I've seen in a long time, and I think Biden thought the same thing. He looked at Palin sometimes as if she were from the moon, and it has almost nothing to do with politics (in the sense of policy or beliefs or what to do next or yadda yadda). It has to do with spectacle, and it has to do with gender, and something has gone terribly wrong.
I hate pretending as if I know anything about Sarah Palin because I don't know anything about her, really. I do think McCain made a reckless choice when he chose her (that's not her fault). I think it is evidence of an impulsive side he can't control.
But as I watched her last night, I saw an amalgamation of traits, affects, effects, gestures, gimmicks, and tricks that don't add up. Or rather, they add up to a kind of robot badly assembled, or a Cubist painting.
The parts include the following: cute--but a bit too old to be cute (mutton pretending to be lamb); "beauty-contestant"; anti-intellectualism (having knowledge about issues is a symptom of being "elite; when talking to your audience, drop the g from ing in words); put your head down and get through this awful event (she had loaded her rhetorical gun with statements, and she was going to shoot them regardless of what questions were asked); something vaguely corporate ( the suit, the glasses, the coiffure); cheap tricks or worn-out jokes ("There you go again": Reagan's line TWENTY EIGHT YEARS AGO; the "white flag of surrender": that is meaningless); the winking at the camera; the lame folksy reference to extra credit in third grade.
Sarah Palin is whoever she is. I don't know who she is. I'm sure she is someone with a unified personality. But Sarah Palin as political spectacle is a symptom of our political system, and something is terribly wrong. The amalgamation of traits she attempted to hold together with glue and tape during the debate is freakish and bizarre, and it says not all that much about her but volumes about how conflicted and fragmented our society is, particularly around issues of femininity and power. I think she's trying to do some kind of job she's been given, and she doesn't exactly know what the job is, except . . . get out there, make noise, be cute.
Reagan made the schtick work. Countless other politicians have, too. Clinton, Roosevelt, Nixon (until he disintegrated), Carter, Bush I, Bush II, take your pick. It has nothing to do with ideology, beliefs, or policy. It is a performance of a show named "Democracy": whatever.
Biden and Obama make the schtick work. The Clintons, too. The parts seem to cohere. They are at least plausibly familiar or familiarly plausible. McCain, too--except for his strange impulsive side.
In the spectacle of Sarah Palin, the schtick has come undone. I was fascinated by the spectacle of her last night because it suggested how badly politics can go wrong and in how many complex ways it can do so, and once again, I have to say it has little or nothing to do with ideology (I think in many ways Hillary Clinton has had to assemble herself into a Cubist painting, too). Sarah Palin the concocted, "prepped," inappropriately chosen, impulsively selected, hastily assembled political entity is a monstrosity. Who Sarah Palin the actual person is, I have almost no clue. Sarah Palin, candidate? A bizarre assemblage. A reflection of her society.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Directions
Directions
I'm feeling rather East today,
full of great cities and old beliefs,
convinced my head and shoulders
constitute horizon and my ideas,
the sun. People come to me. I
do not come to them.
Tomorrow, I'll be North:
severe, remote. I'll seize
all longitudes in one cold fist.
I'll make the needles
on moral compasses shiver
and spin. Whatever I serve
will be best served cold.
One false, contradictory day,
I'll try South on for size.
I shall be serene and anxious,
lethal and demure, exotic
and exhausted. I shall wear
a cape, spread tall tales across
broad tables, imbibe beastly
conconctions, let loose a stream
or two of consciousness.
In the end, like all the rest,
I'll be myself, the West.
Late and last, ragged and
recalcitrant, that's what I'll be.
The sun will come to see me,
floating lowly. Breakers
will bash the walls of the bay.
Shadows will have their say
when I am West at last.
Hans Ostrom Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
A Vector of Villanelles
After writing very few villanelles over the last--oh, let's say lots--of years, I've written several lately. I'm not exactly sure why. I am exactly sure they're not perfect. I'm having a good time with them, though. That counts for somethings.
What to call a group of things? That's the premise of a book called AN EXULTATION OF LARKS. A group of crows is called an unkindness of crows. I think that's a bit mean. A gaggle of geese: that's a familiar one. I wonder what a group of academics is called. A tweed of academics? A pedantry of academics?
A group of villanelles, I've decided, should be called a vector of villanelles, because it is a bit like a disease, this itch to write them, even if it's a harmless diseases, and some diseases require a vector, don't they?
Anyway, another villanelle.
I Think I Know
I think I know exactly what you need:
Someone to say you and your work are good.
But generosity is rare indeed.
Thirst needs its quench, hunger its feed.
But no less basic: to be understood.
I think I know exactly what you need.
To live among the petty might well lead
You to conclude you're just no good.
Yes, generosity is rare indeed.
To care, to listen take no special creed.
So tell me how you are. I'm in the mood
To learn about exactly what you need.
Someone who gives a damn: that's a rare breed,
For each self-centered tree thinks it's the woods.
Though generosity is rare indeed,
I think I know exactly what you need.
Hans Ostrom Copyright Hans Ostrom 2008
Light Verse For Wednesday
What with all the financial, geo-political, environmental, and governmetnal gloom in the atmosphere, I thought perhaps some lighter verse might be in order.
In the Mind's Court
His majesty, the Ego
has fallen out of bed.
His queen, Narcissa,
tripped over his hard head.
Reality, a rowdy
parliament of facts
is pounding on the palace door,
denouncing royal acts.
Humility, a combination
of the wizard and the fool,
gazes at the crisis, says,
"Everybody--be cool."
Hans Ostrom Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Mere Sympathy
What should one do for others who are grieving or who are in pain or who are in crisis? That is a very tough question, one I'm often tempted to answer with words like "Something" or "Anything." But sometimes something or anything feels ineffectual, rote, routine, not all that helpful. Anyway, this topic hung around my mind long enough to get me to write a poem on it. I chose rhyming couplets, for some reason, but I went light on the rhythm, which I wanted to be low key, conversational.
Mere Sympathy
I'm feeling sorry for yourself.
I bring some empathy to your shelf
of discomfort. It's such a small
gift, sitting there against the wall.
I wonder if it does you any good.
Guilt gets me thinking I should
convert it to fuel that would power me
to cook, transport, listen; to see
to something that might lessen pain;
to soothe, repair, or entertain:
something, anything, specific for you,
that is, as opposed to
this general sympathetic feeling,
which hangs above you like a ceiling.
Hans Ostrom Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom
Monday, September 29, 2008
In Times of Crisis, Count On Poets
The broken financial times call for poets. See, almost almost all poets are practical because they can't make a living by writing poetry and must therefore maintain other kinds of gainful employment to get by. Most poets are frugal, both with money and words. They have to make do, so they're used to repairing things, living on a budget, scraping by, solving problems, these sorts of things. Poets tend to be good listeners, too.
If I could assemble some poets in D.C. by, say, Thursday, I know we could pass a sensible fix-it financial bill--one good enough to let everybody gain their equilibrium and start to dig out of the larger problems caused by unregulated greed and capitalists on speed. First of all, we'd all start to get bored really fast, and we couldn't leave until we passed the thing, so we'd pass it and then to to the Library of Congress, used bookstores, cafes, or whatever.
In one column on a piece of paper, I'd list the most serious immediate problems. In another column, I'd list the best ways to solve them, realizing these are short-term repairs, like fixing a tire but not driving on it for a long time. Then I'd break the legislation, based on the repairs, into pieces, and start voting.
Obviously, credit needs to flow again. People need to pay employees and get inventory, that sort of thing. People need help making house payments and hanging on to houses as they go through bankruptcy. This screwy "mark to market" nonsense needs to stop; everybody knows that.
Aunt Sam needs to take over lending-institutions that were run by greedy morons. That can't be hard to arrange. Aunt Sam needs to hang on to these for a while, straighten them out, and then sell them back to the private sector at a modest grocery-store profit so the taxpayers don't get screwed--again.
I'd also have some of my poets call, oh, 50 billionaires in the Gates and Buffett class and ask them to put up 10 per cent of the so-called bail-out, which isn't a bail-out so much as a re-priming of the credit-flow pump and a "calm down, everybody" move. These billionaires can afford it, kicking in 10 per cent would calm nerves, and the billionaires would go down in history as heroes, not just really rich guys and gals. We could have their faces carved on a mountain somewhere, maybe in Alaska.
If it would make the timid congresspeople feel safer, I'd have a different set of them constitute the majority that passed each major section of the legislation. That way, all the praise and blame would be spread out like peanut butter on a piece of bread. You could break down the fix-it bill into, say, 5 parts and have the whole thing passed by dinner time. Then I'd have everybody read Samuel Johnson's "The Vanity of Human Wishes," and they'd get some perspective and learn something about heroic couplets and what it's like to read something written by a person who's brain seemed to work at warp-speed.
There. See how easy that is? Sonnets are hard. Legislation is easy. While no one was paying attention, lots financial folks got greedy and sloppy. That's just the kind of shit people do. They created some problems. Some short-term solutions are required to get people confident again and get some credit flowing. Then we need to create some longer-term solutions, which are more in the novelists' turf.
I'm telling you, poets have a good idea of when it's time (to dredge up a 1960s term) to get one's shit together. George needs to tell that treasury guy of his to settle down, and Congress needs to get its shit together. This isn't rocket science. It isn't even poetry. It's legislation. Sam Johnson's term for the congress-person entities would be "blockheads."
If it's broken, and it is, fix it--no later than Friday. No excuses. Do your damned job. If you can't or won't, call in the poets.
If I could assemble some poets in D.C. by, say, Thursday, I know we could pass a sensible fix-it financial bill--one good enough to let everybody gain their equilibrium and start to dig out of the larger problems caused by unregulated greed and capitalists on speed. First of all, we'd all start to get bored really fast, and we couldn't leave until we passed the thing, so we'd pass it and then to to the Library of Congress, used bookstores, cafes, or whatever.
In one column on a piece of paper, I'd list the most serious immediate problems. In another column, I'd list the best ways to solve them, realizing these are short-term repairs, like fixing a tire but not driving on it for a long time. Then I'd break the legislation, based on the repairs, into pieces, and start voting.
Obviously, credit needs to flow again. People need to pay employees and get inventory, that sort of thing. People need help making house payments and hanging on to houses as they go through bankruptcy. This screwy "mark to market" nonsense needs to stop; everybody knows that.
Aunt Sam needs to take over lending-institutions that were run by greedy morons. That can't be hard to arrange. Aunt Sam needs to hang on to these for a while, straighten them out, and then sell them back to the private sector at a modest grocery-store profit so the taxpayers don't get screwed--again.
I'd also have some of my poets call, oh, 50 billionaires in the Gates and Buffett class and ask them to put up 10 per cent of the so-called bail-out, which isn't a bail-out so much as a re-priming of the credit-flow pump and a "calm down, everybody" move. These billionaires can afford it, kicking in 10 per cent would calm nerves, and the billionaires would go down in history as heroes, not just really rich guys and gals. We could have their faces carved on a mountain somewhere, maybe in Alaska.
If it would make the timid congresspeople feel safer, I'd have a different set of them constitute the majority that passed each major section of the legislation. That way, all the praise and blame would be spread out like peanut butter on a piece of bread. You could break down the fix-it bill into, say, 5 parts and have the whole thing passed by dinner time. Then I'd have everybody read Samuel Johnson's "The Vanity of Human Wishes," and they'd get some perspective and learn something about heroic couplets and what it's like to read something written by a person who's brain seemed to work at warp-speed.
There. See how easy that is? Sonnets are hard. Legislation is easy. While no one was paying attention, lots financial folks got greedy and sloppy. That's just the kind of shit people do. They created some problems. Some short-term solutions are required to get people confident again and get some credit flowing. Then we need to create some longer-term solutions, which are more in the novelists' turf.
I'm telling you, poets have a good idea of when it's time (to dredge up a 1960s term) to get one's shit together. George needs to tell that treasury guy of his to settle down, and Congress needs to get its shit together. This isn't rocket science. It isn't even poetry. It's legislation. Sam Johnson's term for the congress-person entities would be "blockheads."
If it's broken, and it is, fix it--no later than Friday. No excuses. Do your damned job. If you can't or won't, call in the poets.
Friday, September 26, 2008
What Would Jeffers Say?
Two of the most intellectually interesting and nimble people I know are an historian of science and a political scientist, the latter specializing in Constitutional law and how the media report on matters of law. In some ways the two are different intellectually, but they share at least three qualities that help account for the quality of their minds. They are empiricists. They are willing to follow the data wherever they (the data) lead, as opposed to taking a theoretical short-cut to a destination and forcing the data to come along on the vacation Second, they have a sense of irony--about the world and themselves. Third, they're widely read, far beyond their academic specialities. Their reading includes the poetry of Robinson Jeffers.
I see these two and talk with them frequently (one of the perks of this academic job of mine). This week especially I've had them in mind, however, because of the financial debacle and accompanying political circus related to the alleged collapse of Wall Street. Here I must break for a brief rant about conservatives who like to stress "personal responsibility." Arguably, excessive de-regulation (also known as chaos) led to this mess, so how about if some conservatives take personal responsibility for having pushed de-regulation too enthusiastically since, oh, about 1981? How about a simple, "I'm sorry. We were wrong"? It is, however, somewhat amusing to see Congressional Republicans saying No to Bush with regard to the bail-out. Typically, Bush seems to have seen the alleged crisis as an opportunity to try to give the Secretary of the Treasury the powers enjoyed by Henry VIII.
At this moment, when crisis meets farce, I am of course tempted to think of Jeffers and of my two colleagues who like his work. Jeffers thought the U.S. was crumbling by the mid-1940s, as demonstrated by his poem, "Shine, Perishing Republic," in which "this America settles in the mold of its vulgarity, heavily/thickening to empire,/And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out,/and the mass hardens." Later in the poem, he writes, "corruption/Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster's feet/there are left the mountains."
Well, I don't know if even the mountains are left, what with ski resorts, open-pit mining, the spread of suburbia, drought in the Rockies, and all those noisy snow-mobiles and three-wheelers out there. In any event, today I seem to hear Jeffers whispering "See, I told you so."
I suppose it's only fair to concede that Jeffers was a bit of a misanthrope and pessimist; a few friends and family excepted, he tended to prefer the sea, large rocks, and hawks to humans. There is a chance, however, that the current corruption, mismanagement, and inept political spectacle might shock even Jeffers. I'll have to check with my colleagues to see what they think.
Anyway, Robinson, the republic (or empire) seems to be living down to your expectations these days. Maybe this is a good day to read some of e.e. cummings more exuberant, life-affirming poetry and take a break from Jeffers' rocks and hawks
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Concerning That Good Night
In class we briefly discussed the villanelle, that most difficult form, in which the poet has to repeat whole lines, use only two rhyming sounds, stick to iambic pentameter, and, incidentally, make sense. As I've noted in earlier posts, Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night," Theodore Roethke's "The Waking," and W.H. Auden's "If Could Tell You" are among the most venerable villanelles; however, we also studied one by Jay Parini about the event now known as "Nine-Eleven," and most of the students liked it.
We talked about some moves a poet can make to negotiate the form. We noted that many villanelles are light on imagery and rely on statements, on a kind of conversational discourse. We discussed the possibility of using half-rhymes and of altering the repeated lines slightly--turning a statement into a question, for example, or changing one word.
One student said she found the form difficult to read because of the repetition, which can indeed begin to sound like "nagging."
As great as Dylan Thomas's poem is--and it is, indisputably, a tour de force--I've always felt uneasy about the advice the poem offers, simply because I think people should be able to die with the attitude they choose--assuming, of course, that they are even able to choose the attitude with which they approach death. I had a very close older relative who died of heart failure but also, indirectly, of dementia, so she was not able to approach death--mentally or spiritually--in the way she might have chosen. So if I or anyone had advised her not to go gentle into that good night, it would have been pointless, at best. But this takes nothing away from Thomas's indelible villanelle.
Still, I finally decided to write a wee response-villanelle with D.T.'s poem in mind, although I confess the main task here is just to get a bit of a workout. Villanelles offer good aerobic poetic training, even if they don't turn out perfect or fall far short of perfect.
Go As You Wish Into That Good Night
Go as you wish into that good night.
It's not a night, of course. It's death.
To tell you how to die? I have no right.
Besides, death often hides nearby, plain sight--
Then someone's gone, as quickly as a breath.
Go as you wish into that good night,
Assuming you're allowed your wish. I might
Not even be around, to tell the truth.
To tell you how to die? I have no right.
I've not yet died, have not yet faced the fright
Of certain death, so here's my guess:
Go as you wish into that good night.
I sympathize with D.T.'s rage. That sight
Of one who's dear about to die: Damned death!
But still: go as you wish into death's night.
To tell you how to die--I have no right.
Hans Ostrom
Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Should an Apple Pie Appear in a Poem?
I'm almost always afraid to put a rose in a poem because roses have been appearing in poems since about 5,000 B.C.E., or thereabouts. I make an exception when I'm writing explicitly about actually growing roses because then I have a chance of staying away from the usual symbolism, which can be religious, or romantic, or whatever.
I feel similarly about putting an apple pie in a poem. From a poetic perspective, apple pies are . . . what? Too domestic? Too "home-spun"? And then there's the unholy trinity of mom, applie pie, and the American flag. Oy.
So I guess if you write a poem that's based in some way in experience, and if the experience had something to do with baking or eating an apple pie, you're out of luck. You should probably just write a poem about something else or maybe use a different kind of dessert. That would be the smart thing to do.
I decided not to be prudent, however, and I decided to go ahead and write a poem with an apple pie in it. I don't think I entirely escaped the pitfalls of doing so, and I probably made things worse by including "love" along with the apple pie. Oh, well. So it goes with baking and with writing. Trial and error, with lots of error.
Not that you asked, but I prefer apple pies to be very light on the sugar (or the Splenda); indeed, I believe all fruit or berry pies should be tart. I believe this preference places me in a minority. I am also very much in favor of a tradition on the verge of disappearing: serving a piece of sharp cheddar cheese with a piece of pie. No, not vanilla ice cream; cheddar cheese.
Waking to Baking
My love for you
is but for you, just
like the only apple
pie of its kind, the one
I baked that day:
butter-brushed crust
just so, narrow streams
of sweet steam piping
out of vents in the top-
crust opened with a
nicked tip of a paring-
knife. Yes, my love
for you is precisely
combined like cinammon,
nutmeg, and lemon-peel--
a sparing use of sugar,
apples picked, peeled,
and cut by no other hands
but these, pieces of apple
floating in cold water
that day, that hour, the
oven pre-heating, which
is another name for heating.
You napped. You awoke
to a house inebriated with
aroma of baking apple pie,
an affection-imbued interior
weather of heat applied
to fruit, flour, and spices.
Hans Ostrom, Copyright 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
Prophets' Return
Prophets' Return
No wonder prophets don't come back.
Their crests would fall if they returned.
See the prophets standing here, just
returned: "For this," they ask, "we spoke
the fiery truth, risked our lives, and cracked
history?" See them looking at chronic
starvation, effects of cluster- and car-bombs,
oceanic gaps between rich and poor,
advertising smeared like mucous across
humanity. See them seeing torturers,
enslavers, elected thieves and thugs.
Overhear them asking, "Why did we bother?
What we failed to eradicate with righteousness
persists, what we achieved has been forgotten
or repackaged and marketed for a profit." Ah,
but if they were to tarry, they need only read
a single suffering child's face, ingest a spore
of hope, feel courage electrifying wisdom,
and there they'd go again, trying (can you
believe it?), to change the way things are.
Hans Ostrom Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Any Storm in the Port
Any Storm in the Port
The coastline forms a question-mark,
which punctuates the sentence of this day.
From your apartment, you can't even see
buildings that have a view of the harbor.
No ship docking down there will bring
adventure to your life. Even the cargo,
quotidian as it is, will be shipped elsewhere.
Idly, you wish for strange weather--
hurricane, tsunami, dead-calm, lock-down
fog. This wish would be irresponsible if
related to a reality outside your head. You'd
never kill an albatross, interrupt a whale's
progress, organize or break a strike. You
are a cove that occasionally dreams
of being a bay. Viking--you might have
been a Viking. --Not a berserker hacking
villagers but a rower who would pull
the boat in a gray unmapped direction
for as long as it took or until you died.
You're that sort--a kind history never
notices from its panoramic view. You
pull your life through life.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Wall Street Metaphors
I don't know how appropriate it is to speak of having a retirement-account (in the making) as a blessing. Perhaps privilege is a better word. Having one, however, I was among those interested in the reported demise of such instiutions as Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch and the consequent effects on the stock market.
As a reader and poet, however, I soon became interested in the language used to describe the events: tsunami, collapse, plunge, tidal wave, earthquake, hurricane, even Armageddon. Yikes.
Of course, "Wall Street" itself is a kind of metaphor. I believe it's a metonym, in which a part of something is used to describe that something, so that the White House is sometimes used to describe the Executive Branch or the presidency. "The White House said today that . . . ." Certainly, a stock market exists on Wall Street, but all those stocks and bonds exist in vaults somewhere or, more likely, they exist only on computer-chips. I "own" stock only because some letters and numbers on a screen or a piece of paper say I do. Yikes, the Sequel.
I like this term "correction," too. I think it's meant to sound soothing. "The housing-market is undergoing a correction," it is said, or "Expect the stock market to correct." When I pause to consider the word, though, I realize that a mistake has been made--one that needs correction. "They" would probably prefer that I think of a ship making a slight "correction" (adjustment) in its course.
"Bubble" has been around a long time in connection with markets. As far back as the 18th century, I think, there was a speculative "bubble" concerning British colonial investments. It's a pretty interesting metaphor. Investments become as molecules of gas, which create a bubble, which pops, and the investments go . . . into the air. I still don't know what to make of the term "hedge," applied to investments. I think it means that you put a hedge around your investments, but hedges have never seemed that durable or protective to me. They're things birds can penetrate, after all. "Hedge-fund" just doesn't sound right. "I've decided to invest in hedges--chiefly laurel and boxwood. What do you think?"
In some ways, the financial world seems and is so technical, all mathematics and statistics. But when even the alleged experts discuss "the market," they seem quickly to slip into metaphor-speak. Nonetheless, I don't think I'd necessarily argue for putting a poet in charge of AIG, for example. By the way, who or what insures insurance companies? I guess "we" do--people who pay taxes.
As a reader and poet, however, I soon became interested in the language used to describe the events: tsunami, collapse, plunge, tidal wave, earthquake, hurricane, even Armageddon. Yikes.
Of course, "Wall Street" itself is a kind of metaphor. I believe it's a metonym, in which a part of something is used to describe that something, so that the White House is sometimes used to describe the Executive Branch or the presidency. "The White House said today that . . . ." Certainly, a stock market exists on Wall Street, but all those stocks and bonds exist in vaults somewhere or, more likely, they exist only on computer-chips. I "own" stock only because some letters and numbers on a screen or a piece of paper say I do. Yikes, the Sequel.
I like this term "correction," too. I think it's meant to sound soothing. "The housing-market is undergoing a correction," it is said, or "Expect the stock market to correct." When I pause to consider the word, though, I realize that a mistake has been made--one that needs correction. "They" would probably prefer that I think of a ship making a slight "correction" (adjustment) in its course.
"Bubble" has been around a long time in connection with markets. As far back as the 18th century, I think, there was a speculative "bubble" concerning British colonial investments. It's a pretty interesting metaphor. Investments become as molecules of gas, which create a bubble, which pops, and the investments go . . . into the air. I still don't know what to make of the term "hedge," applied to investments. I think it means that you put a hedge around your investments, but hedges have never seemed that durable or protective to me. They're things birds can penetrate, after all. "Hedge-fund" just doesn't sound right. "I've decided to invest in hedges--chiefly laurel and boxwood. What do you think?"
In some ways, the financial world seems and is so technical, all mathematics and statistics. But when even the alleged experts discuss "the market," they seem quickly to slip into metaphor-speak. Nonetheless, I don't think I'd necessarily argue for putting a poet in charge of AIG, for example. By the way, who or what insures insurance companies? I guess "we" do--people who pay taxes.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
We're There Yet
We're There Yet
Where shall we go? Hell is out--
much too expensive. Let's go where
the beach doesn't stink when the tide
hides. I wouldn't mind a town
that featured jobs for us but also
had people who have doubts about
strong opinions. Who am I, Kidding?
We're where we went.
This isn't home, but it will have to do.
Say, do you hear that dog barking?
That's where we are, my darling.
Why does the newspaper have
a "Travel" section every Sunday?
Is that supposed to be some kind of joke?
Why is there even a newspaper here?
The best news already happened.
Yesterday, a woman told me
she saw someone walking an
armadillo on a leash. She asked me,
"What kind of town is this?"
I said it's definitely a town
in which people might take
an armadillo for a walk. I
did not wish to mislead her.
We've arrived, regardless of
whether we planned to go here
or not. This is what our destination
looks like. Darling, do your best.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Sex
There is an online site called poemsabout.com, and as you might infer, it's a massive compendium of poems organized by topic. The lists of topics themselves intrigue. Here's just a piece of the alphabetical list:
africa
alone
america
angel
anger
animal
april
autumn
baby
ballad
beach
beautiful
beauty
believe
birth
brother
butterfly
candy
An arguably interesting writing-prompt would simply be to start with this list, begin making phrases, lines, and sentences (with additional words as needed), and see where the language led one. Richard Hugo advises this kind of approach (in The Triggering Town), when he advises poets to write "off the subject." His logic is that a poet's obsessions will out, one way or another, and that therefore one should concentrate on the medium (language), not the message. In fact, he advises that if you have a choice between conveying your "message" and writing language that is more pleasing than the language that contains the message, go with the pleasing language every time. Of course, much in writers resists such advice, which is counterintuitive because we are accustomed to thinking of language as transmission of message. Elsewhere Hugo humorously writes, "If you want to communicate, use a telephone."
At any rate, when I looked at the topics on poemsabout.com, I realized I'd never written a poem, strictly speaking, about sex. Of course I'd written some poems that referred to sex, one way or another, but I'd never written "sex" at the top of the page and started a poem. Certainly, "sex" seems like a very good topic for a poem; this claims seems indisputable. At the same time, poets who've been writing for a while know that the so-called sex-poem can be simply graphic, pornographic, and/or surprisingly not-sexy--that is to say, boring. Nevertheless, I decided to write a poem entitled "Sex," although the poem itself seems to be as much about language as it is about sex, no surprise there.
Sex
Sex is an excellent syllable, which
detonates meaning and is fillable
with much connotation. Of course
it conjures a deed done and conjugal
entanglements of bodies, when love
or lust gets down to earthy business,
when desire fires itself up and down
and on (and out of) the town. Sex
is also an implied question on a form
that may be answered M or F,
even if you’re in a mood to
answer Yes or No or Maybe So,
or "I'll get back to you later" or
"What about it?"Sex is not solely
one thing or two but more
than a few and human, too.
Sex at times is a semiotic nexus
(how sexual that sounds!) suggesting
bawdy, haughty, naughty, hottie
bodies, which touch and much more
in sex’s neck of the woulds and coulds,
the musts and lusts. Sometimes sex is
subtly intimated simply by the two-letter
syllable, it, as in getting it on, doing it,
making it, and even, alas, faking it. Oh
yes, there’s that other effing eff-word,
the one that rhymes with truck
and gets so often stuck in awkward syntactical
positions. Sex is life in frenzied love
with itself, all lips and hips, rounds
and flats, sultry strategies and tender
tactics, loads of lust and convoys
of cupidity, sensual consensual
congress. Sex can cause stupidity—
would you agree?—and vice versa.
Sex is a state of union, an exhilarating
expiration, a getting up, a getting with
it, a going down, a fear and fondness
of flying, a finding out and a knowing
about. It has been known to be
a bit of a chore, an occasional bore.
It’s mysterious and base, crude and holy,
much cause for consternation,
controversy, rules, and fools. Sex
is something else again. And again.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Concerning Vanity
[photo of Peter Sellers as Clouseau]
How vain of me to write and post a poem on vanity! Ah, the obscure, vainglorious trap of being a blogging poet.
Vanity Almost Rhymes Fully With Insanity
In those days of my alleged
importance, vanity
was my friend. She
maintained a list
of my accomplishments.
We sipped drinks
and traded admirations,
looking out over a bay.
We wore status
like our clothes.
We decided, vanity
and I, who was good
and worth our time. Once
vanity and I had realized
my importance, however,
I lost vanity as a friend. A
certain evaporation of
illusion left distance
between us. Obscurity
is my pal now. Oh,
obscurity makes me laugh,
and what a reliable friend.
We get together, evenings.
We warmly review
how vanity once charmed
us, the ways in which I was
ordinary at most and not
important back then. And now.
Hans Ostrom Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Ballad of the Micro-Town
[the photo is of Sierra City, California, population 225, elevation @ 4,250 feet above sea level]
Ballad of the Micro-Town
The mountains round that town are sheer
Massifs of stone. The town
Lies glinting like a coin below.
The river carves a frown.
I grew up there, so it was all.
It was the world to me.
That it and I were less than small
I'd learn eventually.
To have grown up in a small town
Is such a micro-fate,
A shrunken destiny, at best,
A morsel of time's bait.
If you are from a micro-town,
Bravo to you from me.
Our origins have blessed us with
Well known obscurity.
Hans Ostrom Copyright 2008
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Hair-Cutter's Hiccups
Hair-Cutter's Hiccups
In the hair-cutting place, no longer
known as either a barber shop or salon,
I heard a child report, "Horses
are my favorite thing in the whole
universe." The woman cutting
my hair suffered from hiccups.
Of a recent customer, she said,
"He's the rudest person I've met--
hup!--in my hair-life so far." She
asked, "Sideburns trimmed?" I
answered, "Sure." She asked,
"'Shorter' or 'sure'?" I said,
"Sure, shorter." She said, "Hiccups
affect my hearing." I laughed.
Finished with my sideburns, she said,
"Look down." At the guillotine-line, she
let the humming clippers nibble my neck.
Later, she removed the black silk cape
from me with a bullfighter's flourish
and said, "There you are--hup!" We
looked in the mirror, where I
wasn't but where we saw each
other absurdly looking in the mirror.
Hans Ostrom Copyright 2008
Friday, September 12, 2008
Blogosonnet
Blogosonnet
There's nothing spherical about the space
In which innumerable web-logs all appear.
It's just Electronville, the selfsame place
That harbors radio, lightning, and fear.
A universe of language every day
Big-bangs itself into hyper-existence
On billions of screens--a cosmic spray
Of texts that is galactically immense.
The Web is actually a firmament
Of pixelated light. In fact, these blogs
Aren't blogs so much as wee lights meant
To light a billion mental strolls through bogs
Of collective and individual thought:
This is what Gutenberg and Gates hath wrought.
Hans Ostrom Copyright 2008
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Transactional Poem
Transactional Poem
Although we've never met
and odds are never will, we
virtually converge here on line 3.
I deliberately left imagery home
because I wanted to meet you
unspecifically as I write and you
read this. I figured you didn't
want to be imagined, for you
already exist. You are who
you are, not what anyone
says you're like. Similitude
is difference with a mask on.
What happens next is that
you think what you will
inside your life, mind, body,
moment. You are the only
you you'll ever be, a verifiable
rarity. It is good to meet you
here without having to know you,
and there's a good chance you may
feel the same. Your reading this
transactional poem is what the poem
means. You perfect it by being there
and here. Reading, you finish the poem
I'm about to finish, none too soon.
In poetry, this qualifies as business
transacted. It's been a pleasure doing
language with you.
Hans Ostrom Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom
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