Thursday, April 14, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
School of Poetry
School of Poetry
I was going to start a School of Poetry,
but I couldn't find a building to lease, nor
could I gather a group of destined geniuses.
A group? Not even one foreordainedly
acclaimed scribbler. So on I rode upon
a rickety nag of my own, notebooks piling
up somewhere like a slate-castle, my wee
career in poetry careening out where the
brush grows and the tourist throws an
empty bottle of beer. I am I think
a member of a species the birders like
to call accidental. Thank God I never
started a School of Poetry. I would have
been tardy every day and distracted by
the cheerleaders for the football team,
on which I would have played free
safety, a roaming loner in search of
a concussion, scribbling dreams
between the yard-lines while ghosts
dissolved in Alka-Seltzer mists
beyond the stadium.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
I was going to start a School of Poetry,
but I couldn't find a building to lease, nor
could I gather a group of destined geniuses.
A group? Not even one foreordainedly
acclaimed scribbler. So on I rode upon
a rickety nag of my own, notebooks piling
up somewhere like a slate-castle, my wee
career in poetry careening out where the
brush grows and the tourist throws an
empty bottle of beer. I am I think
a member of a species the birders like
to call accidental. Thank God I never
started a School of Poetry. I would have
been tardy every day and distracted by
the cheerleaders for the football team,
on which I would have played free
safety, a roaming loner in search of
a concussion, scribbling dreams
between the yard-lines while ghosts
dissolved in Alka-Seltzer mists
beyond the stadium.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Experimental Poem
My sense is that if you write an experimental poem, you probably shouldn't title it, "Experimental Poem," unless of course, in spite of being figurative, you occasionally suffer bouts of literalism. Not that you asked, but I think every poem is an experiment in writing poetry; that doesn't mean every poem is experimental, however. Which is technically a contradiction, I think, except that in the previous sentence, "experiment" refers to a process of discovery and "experimental" refers to a mode, type, or sub-genre. There should probably be a question mark after the title.
Experimental Poem
By definition, an experiment
is a former periment. A periment
is whatever you want it to be. It
sounds to me to be a part of a building,
a small amphibian, or an herb. ("Let
me draw your attention to the
periment now, if I may.") By
infinition, you who may be whoever,
especially online, may/can try whatever
you like or don't like for whatever why.
["Hello? To whom am I speaking?"]
Sure, there are courses of deep grammar,
ingrown conventions, and local customs
that will pull your perimentation toward
silted centers of common practice. Fact is,
["it just isn't done," an editor wrote to me
once, except I'd already done it] don't
let that pulley interrupt the fermentation (which,
yes, I know is rot), the chemical re-agenting
[this is too "out there," even for me, an agent
once wrote to me] underway as you pluck
drugged strings of a rubber violin on a baking
street, your sober alter-ego/oge-retla less
than [not equal to] enthused about your rumored
genius. ("I perceive you have been in Afghanistan.")
If there is a game afoot, look in the underbrush or
between mirrored pages of a glass anthology
["in the end, I did not fall in love with it"]
sitting on a table in your mind. There should
probably be a question mark after the title and
after every statement you make when you
pass the age of, say, 40.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Experimental Poem
By definition, an experiment
is a former periment. A periment
is whatever you want it to be. It
sounds to me to be a part of a building,
a small amphibian, or an herb. ("Let
me draw your attention to the
periment now, if I may.") By
infinition, you who may be whoever,
especially online, may/can try whatever
you like or don't like for whatever why.
["Hello? To whom am I speaking?"]
Sure, there are courses of deep grammar,
ingrown conventions, and local customs
that will pull your perimentation toward
silted centers of common practice. Fact is,
["it just isn't done," an editor wrote to me
once, except I'd already done it] don't
let that pulley interrupt the fermentation (which,
yes, I know is rot), the chemical re-agenting
[this is too "out there," even for me, an agent
once wrote to me] underway as you pluck
drugged strings of a rubber violin on a baking
street, your sober alter-ego/oge-retla less
than [not equal to] enthused about your rumored
genius. ("I perceive you have been in Afghanistan.")
If there is a game afoot, look in the underbrush or
between mirrored pages of a glass anthology
["in the end, I did not fall in love with it"]
sitting on a table in your mind. There should
probably be a question mark after the title and
after every statement you make when you
pass the age of, say, 40.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Monday, April 11, 2011
In Vienna
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In Vienna
How the fuck did I get here? I asked myself.
Winter. Yes, yes: the opera, the history,
the goddamned magnificence. A big so what?
to all of that and more when you're thin
on money, low on rest, and loaded down
with many mistakes you made. Back "home,"
they'd elected Reagan president. That, children,
was a point of no return. Austria is
of great historical importance. Okay, fine,
but I'm hungry, I thought. So I went out,
and I went out, and I found myself a cafe,
which featured a kind of importance I
required--hot food and wine, buzz of
customers, glowing lights and cigarette
smoke, a blond woman with a wry
smile, and a sense of proportion.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
/
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In Vienna
How the fuck did I get here? I asked myself.
Winter. Yes, yes: the opera, the history,
the goddamned magnificence. A big so what?
to all of that and more when you're thin
on money, low on rest, and loaded down
with many mistakes you made. Back "home,"
they'd elected Reagan president. That, children,
was a point of no return. Austria is
of great historical importance. Okay, fine,
but I'm hungry, I thought. So I went out,
and I went out, and I found myself a cafe,
which featured a kind of importance I
required--hot food and wine, buzz of
customers, glowing lights and cigarette
smoke, a blond woman with a wry
smile, and a sense of proportion.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Without Acknowledged Passions
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Without Acknowledged Passions
"He was wary of solitary men, people without acknowledged passions." --Maigret and the Calame Report, by Georges Simenon, Chapter 3.
Like any advanced mammal, they calculate,
the ones with unacknowledged passions, but
their cruelty is cooler, reptilian. If they would
but name their passions, we'd all be safer.
The won't say what they really want, so
they try to exact things from us. Always
in a hurry, bustling with short strides,
keeping careful records, they don't
get much done. Always arguing, they
never convince. And always opining,
they make us crave facts. The ones
without acknowledged passions fail
by seeming to succeed--like an avalanche.
What is wrong with them can't be made
right. Don't try. Pass by.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
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/
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Without Acknowledged Passions
"He was wary of solitary men, people without acknowledged passions." --Maigret and the Calame Report, by Georges Simenon, Chapter 3.
Like any advanced mammal, they calculate,
the ones with unacknowledged passions, but
their cruelty is cooler, reptilian. If they would
but name their passions, we'd all be safer.
The won't say what they really want, so
they try to exact things from us. Always
in a hurry, bustling with short strides,
keeping careful records, they don't
get much done. Always arguing, they
never convince. And always opining,
they make us crave facts. The ones
without acknowledged passions fail
by seeming to succeed--like an avalanche.
What is wrong with them can't be made
right. Don't try. Pass by.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Plato, Kant, Life
Plato, Kant, Life
There is no categorical
imperative or Platonic ideal.
These things do not exist.
They are that. Life is this.
More imaginative than Kant
is God, who does not want,
who makes perfect sense,
who knows the original whence.
Plato imagined he knew
what to make of this stew,
life. His notions were less than ideal.
This stew is terribly real,
not approximation, God knows.
Out of mystery, not forms, creation flows.
We and life are history,
Whereas God is mystery.
God is neither categorical nor ideal.
God is rather formlessly real.
Copyright 2011
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Living With the Sound
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Living With the Sound
I've lived with the sound of what
are called fighter-jets all my life:
sonic-booms over the Sierra Nevada then,
air-scraping roar of weapon-laden planes
over Puget Sound now. It is
a sound denoting the American Empire.
That is a fair statement. Anyway, today
when the noise materializes, a cat
lifts its head instinctively, as if to try
to discern the sound through the ceiling.
I lift my head to look at the cat. The sound
has always been the sound of something
far above and beyond my control,
closer than the sky, farther
away than the moon.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
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Living With the Sound
I've lived with the sound of what
are called fighter-jets all my life:
sonic-booms over the Sierra Nevada then,
air-scraping roar of weapon-laden planes
over Puget Sound now. It is
a sound denoting the American Empire.
That is a fair statement. Anyway, today
when the noise materializes, a cat
lifts its head instinctively, as if to try
to discern the sound through the ceiling.
I lift my head to look at the cat. The sound
has always been the sound of something
far above and beyond my control,
closer than the sky, farther
away than the moon.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
My Country 'Tis
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My Country 'Tis
My country 'tis of thee, perpetual
detainee, of thee I sing. Land of
monopoly, most
massive military, of thee I sing.
Slavery for centuries, you've
still not made it right. You dim
reconciliation's light--and
you won't sing.
Developing every mountainside,
let your ears ring. Land with
more prisoners than it ever used
to have, land always
off to war, perpetual fights
abroad, of thee who sings?
Not a republic now, more
guns than privacy,
more hate than equity, melt
freedom's ring. My country
'Tis not "mine." Don't think
it ever was. I'm as powerless
as dryer-fuzz. "My" country
belongs to the powerful, oh yes,
and I can't sing. This country
'tis of thee, perpetual detainee,
"combatant enemy," of thee
who sings? There is a They
and We, surveilled ubuity,
you'd better talk--or else:
Yes, sing, sing, sing.
From every mountainside,
let indus-military glide--
pollutants: smear them wide--
of thee. Of thee. What can
I do about thee, "my" distant
country? Not much, not much,
I fear. I cannot sing.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
}
}
}
My Country 'Tis
My country 'tis of thee, perpetual
detainee, of thee I sing. Land of
monopoly, most
massive military, of thee I sing.
Slavery for centuries, you've
still not made it right. You dim
reconciliation's light--and
you won't sing.
Developing every mountainside,
let your ears ring. Land with
more prisoners than it ever used
to have, land always
off to war, perpetual fights
abroad, of thee who sings?
Not a republic now, more
guns than privacy,
more hate than equity, melt
freedom's ring. My country
'Tis not "mine." Don't think
it ever was. I'm as powerless
as dryer-fuzz. "My" country
belongs to the powerful, oh yes,
and I can't sing. This country
'tis of thee, perpetual detainee,
"combatant enemy," of thee
who sings? There is a They
and We, surveilled ubuity,
you'd better talk--or else:
Yes, sing, sing, sing.
From every mountainside,
let indus-military glide--
pollutants: smear them wide--
of thee. Of thee. What can
I do about thee, "my" distant
country? Not much, not much,
I fear. I cannot sing.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
The Difference Between Poetry and Prose
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The Difference Between Poetry and Prose
What is the difference between poetry and prose?
is a question poetry never even thinks to ask at a party.
Poetry is too distracted looking at the curve of someone's
buttock, or tasting the word "vellum," which somebody
uttered a half-hour ago, or letting a whiff of vanilla cast
it into a pool of memory. Prose is the responsible sibling,
doing its duty to make something happen. Poetry assumes
everything's always happening already. It is
stoned, stunned, seduced, and stung by reality,
which just happens to be, according to poetry.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
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The Difference Between Poetry and Prose
What is the difference between poetry and prose?
is a question poetry never even thinks to ask at a party.
Poetry is too distracted looking at the curve of someone's
buttock, or tasting the word "vellum," which somebody
uttered a half-hour ago, or letting a whiff of vanilla cast
it into a pool of memory. Prose is the responsible sibling,
doing its duty to make something happen. Poetry assumes
everything's always happening already. It is
stoned, stunned, seduced, and stung by reality,
which just happens to be, according to poetry.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Friday, April 8, 2011
Watch Out for Us
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Watch Out for Us
We're all around you, you know. There are
a lot of us--the ones who over-think things,
the ponderers. (Perhaps you're one of us:
what do you think?) We think of thinking
as vocation. Oh, yes, we're usually boring
or invisible or impertinent, in the best sense
of the latter word: think about it. If you ask
us what we think, however, we may defer
or deflect. We don't necessarily like sharing
what we think. That trait belongs to a different
sort. We just like thinking. At social events,
we might flash a smile, answer an arcane
question, or amuse briefly, but then we
always withdraw. Why? To get away
from noise and to think. What good are we?
Where does all this thinking get us, get you?
Ah, we think about those questions, too.
Oh, yes, you bet we do.
/
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Watch Out for Us
We're all around you, you know. There are
a lot of us--the ones who over-think things,
the ponderers. (Perhaps you're one of us:
what do you think?) We think of thinking
as vocation. Oh, yes, we're usually boring
or invisible or impertinent, in the best sense
of the latter word: think about it. If you ask
us what we think, however, we may defer
or deflect. We don't necessarily like sharing
what we think. That trait belongs to a different
sort. We just like thinking. At social events,
we might flash a smile, answer an arcane
question, or amuse briefly, but then we
always withdraw. Why? To get away
from noise and to think. What good are we?
Where does all this thinking get us, get you?
Ah, we think about those questions, too.
Oh, yes, you bet we do.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Nothing Less
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Nothing Less
On the brink of exhausting the Earth, it's
past time to re-think, don't you think?
The scandals of nuclear weapons,
starvation, species eradication. Chasms
between rich and poor . . . . Nothing less
than a revolution of spirit shall suffice.
The age seems to beg for moral transformation,
by which we agree to think ahead by centuries,
not quarter-years. Short-term profits
shall be anathema. A certain selflessness
must obtain. We have to mine it within
ourselves. It's there. Refine it--that ore
known by an old-fashioned name, virtue.
Nothing less than a revolution of the spirit
shall suffice, I think, when I think twice.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
)
)
)
Nothing Less
On the brink of exhausting the Earth, it's
past time to re-think, don't you think?
The scandals of nuclear weapons,
starvation, species eradication. Chasms
between rich and poor . . . . Nothing less
than a revolution of spirit shall suffice.
The age seems to beg for moral transformation,
by which we agree to think ahead by centuries,
not quarter-years. Short-term profits
shall be anathema. A certain selflessness
must obtain. We have to mine it within
ourselves. It's there. Refine it--that ore
known by an old-fashioned name, virtue.
Nothing less than a revolution of the spirit
shall suffice, I think, when I think twice.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Better Than Television
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Better Than Television
This week I encountered several people who talk
constantly out loud to themselves in public. Out
very loud. It's interesting how they are at once
accepted and normatively abnormal: I experience
curiosity and wariness. Also of interest is that
I don't listen carefully to them. If I did, I'd have
to follow them because they're almost always
on the move, and it would be rude to follow them.
But it's a missed opportunity, not listening, I suspect.
Maybe it's gibberish, maybe it's not: I don't know.
But it has to be better than television. At least.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
(
(
(
Better Than Television
This week I encountered several people who talk
constantly out loud to themselves in public. Out
very loud. It's interesting how they are at once
accepted and normatively abnormal: I experience
curiosity and wariness. Also of interest is that
I don't listen carefully to them. If I did, I'd have
to follow them because they're almost always
on the move, and it would be rude to follow them.
But it's a missed opportunity, not listening, I suspect.
Maybe it's gibberish, maybe it's not: I don't know.
But it has to be better than television. At least.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Monday, April 4, 2011
Final Engagement
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Final Engagement
The man told me twelve-hundred American
veterans of World War II die each month now.
The Macs and Johnnys, Jimmies and Franks,
farm-boys, city-boys; Black soldiers
once concentrated in separate divisions; men
who enlisted at Manzanar or Tule Lake; women
called WAVES whose names were Kay or
Gladys, Mildred, Lucille, Gloria, or Dolores;
conscientious objectors, veterans of another kind
of war; men with lifelong jitters, and worse, after
the war. It's the final engagement, in which 1200
perish per month, maybe more, their photos
ghostlike on local obit websites. It's the final
assault on the jitterbug and cherry blossoms,
high-balls, unfiltered Camels, the sound of Murrow's voice,
the Lindy Hop, silk nylons, hair oil, propellers,
and a deep reticence to talk with anyone about what
happened over there, over here.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
(
(
(
Final Engagement
The man told me twelve-hundred American
veterans of World War II die each month now.
The Macs and Johnnys, Jimmies and Franks,
farm-boys, city-boys; Black soldiers
once concentrated in separate divisions; men
who enlisted at Manzanar or Tule Lake; women
called WAVES whose names were Kay or
Gladys, Mildred, Lucille, Gloria, or Dolores;
conscientious objectors, veterans of another kind
of war; men with lifelong jitters, and worse, after
the war. It's the final engagement, in which 1200
perish per month, maybe more, their photos
ghostlike on local obit websites. It's the final
assault on the jitterbug and cherry blossoms,
high-balls, unfiltered Camels, the sound of Murrow's voice,
the Lindy Hop, silk nylons, hair oil, propellers,
and a deep reticence to talk with anyone about what
happened over there, over here.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Friday, April 1, 2011
My White Body
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My White Body
My white body has brought me ease
in this USA society that's marked black
and brown bodies, that marks them still.
My body white and masculine has functioned
as a passport, yes it has. Has often let me
be as invisible or as noticed as I prefer.
Has allowed me to prefer. I hear the voices
of contrarians: Have my white body and I
been excluded, ignored, worked hard, and
maybe even hated? Oh, sure. But not so
as to make my white body's experience
and me equivalent to that of those marked
by this USA society. I've been reading
The Slave Ship: A Human History by
Marcus Rediker, 2008. You know, you
think you know, but you don't know--
that is why history is written, read.
Admit it. Admit you have a white body
according to the culture's rules, I told
myself. And let's not whitewash the issue.
This isn't Tom Sawyer's fence.
What's an admission worth? Not much.
It's a move, a mental shift. What must ensue
after the admission must be more productive
than just the admission. Otherwise the move
becomes just more hoo-hah from a mind inside
a white body. My white body has brought me ease.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
(
(
(
My White Body
My white body has brought me ease
in this USA society that's marked black
and brown bodies, that marks them still.
My body white and masculine has functioned
as a passport, yes it has. Has often let me
be as invisible or as noticed as I prefer.
Has allowed me to prefer. I hear the voices
of contrarians: Have my white body and I
been excluded, ignored, worked hard, and
maybe even hated? Oh, sure. But not so
as to make my white body's experience
and me equivalent to that of those marked
by this USA society. I've been reading
The Slave Ship: A Human History by
Marcus Rediker, 2008. You know, you
think you know, but you don't know--
that is why history is written, read.
Admit it. Admit you have a white body
according to the culture's rules, I told
myself. And let's not whitewash the issue.
This isn't Tom Sawyer's fence.
What's an admission worth? Not much.
It's a move, a mental shift. What must ensue
after the admission must be more productive
than just the admission. Otherwise the move
becomes just more hoo-hah from a mind inside
a white body. My white body has brought me ease.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
My Father Does Disapprobation
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My Father Does Disapprobation
Jesus Christ Almighty! my father used to say,
not speaking to, of, or for Jesus but to one or more
of his three sons, who had done something maybe
not even wrong but just imperfectly. He could be
thunderous in his disapprobation, which is a word
I never heard him say. He was the Jehovah
of our family--and an atheist: no competition.
Jesus Christ Almighty HIT the sonofabitch!!
he'd shout--concerning a sledge-hammer,
wielded by one of us, at a wooden stake.
A mere stake being driven into the mere ground!
Disproportionate furor! Magnificent, in its own
way, and in its own way Judeo-Christian: Old School.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
)
)
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My Father Does Disapprobation
Jesus Christ Almighty! my father used to say,
not speaking to, of, or for Jesus but to one or more
of his three sons, who had done something maybe
not even wrong but just imperfectly. He could be
thunderous in his disapprobation, which is a word
I never heard him say. He was the Jehovah
of our family--and an atheist: no competition.
Jesus Christ Almighty HIT the sonofabitch!!
he'd shout--concerning a sledge-hammer,
wielded by one of us, at a wooden stake.
A mere stake being driven into the mere ground!
Disproportionate furor! Magnificent, in its own
way, and in its own way Judeo-Christian: Old School.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
This Is Your Uncle Vinton
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This Is Your Uncle Vinton
This is your Uncle Vinton calling:
You say you don't have an Uncle
Vinton, and you close the call.
Actually you do have an Uncle
Vinton. He's a secret, me. I was
going to mention a few other things
you may not know. But that's all right.
You'll be fine not knowing them, me.
You may recall in quiet moments
the calm assurance of my voice when
I said, This is your Uncle Vinton calling.
Our disconnection will be our only connection.
--Unless of course you call me some night
and say This is your niece, Verona, calling,
and I say, "I don't have a niece named Verona."
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
)
)
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This Is Your Uncle Vinton
This is your Uncle Vinton calling:
You say you don't have an Uncle
Vinton, and you close the call.
Actually you do have an Uncle
Vinton. He's a secret, me. I was
going to mention a few other things
you may not know. But that's all right.
You'll be fine not knowing them, me.
You may recall in quiet moments
the calm assurance of my voice when
I said, This is your Uncle Vinton calling.
Our disconnection will be our only connection.
--Unless of course you call me some night
and say This is your niece, Verona, calling,
and I say, "I don't have a niece named Verona."
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Gray Boulder
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I Say That Gray Boulder
I say that gray boulder will always be
there, knowing it will be gone--but long
after I am no longer. I say it because
I need at least a stone to stay where
it was, where it is in my mind,
which needs rock to be more
than memory. Mind wearies of its
memories, its common stock. That
gray boulder's under cedars.
I sat on it, age six, and experienced
the expansive fluidity of sight, thought,
light, impulse, and sensation all children
know but don't know they will lose.
I say "that gray boulder," and I know.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
}
}
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I Say That Gray Boulder
I say that gray boulder will always be
there, knowing it will be gone--but long
after I am no longer. I say it because
I need at least a stone to stay where
it was, where it is in my mind,
which needs rock to be more
than memory. Mind wearies of its
memories, its common stock. That
gray boulder's under cedars.
I sat on it, age six, and experienced
the expansive fluidity of sight, thought,
light, impulse, and sensation all children
know but don't know they will lose.
I say "that gray boulder," and I know.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
Rush Hour Poem
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{
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Rush, Our
Convenience, steel, and efficiency
in automobilian form get reduced
to viscous troughs of traffic, giving
us time to work on futility, self-loathing,
and heart-attacks. Someone named it
the Rush Hour. It's when rushing ceases,
and it lasts several hours; otherwise,
it's a great name. The oligarchs prefer
that we travel this way, stopped
in vehicles built to go, sitting in a
holding-cell atop rubber tires and
with payments due. It's a great system.
It really is. And so sometimes we
lean on the horn or shout at the
windshield, our impotent spit
flying, to express sad rage or
to misbehave farcically.
Copyright 2011
{
[
]
Rush, Our
Convenience, steel, and efficiency
in automobilian form get reduced
to viscous troughs of traffic, giving
us time to work on futility, self-loathing,
and heart-attacks. Someone named it
the Rush Hour. It's when rushing ceases,
and it lasts several hours; otherwise,
it's a great name. The oligarchs prefer
that we travel this way, stopped
in vehicles built to go, sitting in a
holding-cell atop rubber tires and
with payments due. It's a great system.
It really is. And so sometimes we
lean on the horn or shout at the
windshield, our impotent spit
flying, to express sad rage or
to misbehave farcically.
Copyright 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Saturday, March 19, 2011
The Alchemist
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The Alchemist
Umber smoke, flashed flame,
a bizarre stench: all this delights
the alchemist, whose brow
and cheeks are carbon-smudged.
The base metals stare up
at him like indifferent pets.
He stares back, smiling.
The alchemist knows gold
is far off, welded to quartz
inside mountains under snow.
Facts are tedious to know.
In the windowless room
allowed him, the alchemist
transforms fact into gilded
hope. His crucible holds
a desire: that wealth can
come from want, reverence
from boredom, love from
indifference. He breathes
the fumes of failure and smiles.
Golden bees of possibility hum
inside the realistic head of
the alchemist, who must go to
his job the next day: welding
gray cargo-ships beside the bay.
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The Alchemist
Umber smoke, flashed flame,
a bizarre stench: all this delights
the alchemist, whose brow
and cheeks are carbon-smudged.
The base metals stare up
at him like indifferent pets.
He stares back, smiling.
The alchemist knows gold
is far off, welded to quartz
inside mountains under snow.
Facts are tedious to know.
In the windowless room
allowed him, the alchemist
transforms fact into gilded
hope. His crucible holds
a desire: that wealth can
come from want, reverence
from boredom, love from
indifference. He breathes
the fumes of failure and smiles.
Golden bees of possibility hum
inside the realistic head of
the alchemist, who must go to
his job the next day: welding
gray cargo-ships beside the bay.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Friday, March 11, 2011
Bread and Oranges
...Re-posting one from 2009....
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At Least I Left Bread and Oranges
At first I didn't think I'd be in
this poem, which set out to accumulate
words representing images neutrally--
blue conifer-hills, black flies pulsing
on a deer's bone, rocking red box
of a medics' truck, mineral-grin of
a Cadillac's fin. . . . The truth is
I didn't have another poem to go to,
so I visited this one. You came in
and discovered me sitting on the old
green couch. --And now there you go,
out the door, slam, and I can't
blame you, but I promise to be gone
by the time that you return, and
I did buy bread and oranges. They
are sitting on the counter.
Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom
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At Least I Left Bread and Oranges
At first I didn't think I'd be in
this poem, which set out to accumulate
words representing images neutrally--
blue conifer-hills, black flies pulsing
on a deer's bone, rocking red box
of a medics' truck, mineral-grin of
a Cadillac's fin. . . . The truth is
I didn't have another poem to go to,
so I visited this one. You came in
and discovered me sitting on the old
green couch. --And now there you go,
out the door, slam, and I can't
blame you, but I promise to be gone
by the time that you return, and
I did buy bread and oranges. They
are sitting on the counter.
Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom
Data Regarding Teacher-Pay
Particularly in relation to the events in Wisconsin, these data concerning teacher-pay in the U.S. vis a vis other industrialized nations are (or may be) of interest:
chart
chart
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Reno
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Reno
When a man holds a knife
in an alley and his aim
is to stick the knife in you,
your dispersed thoughts
reconvene for a quick
meeting. Adrenalin
floods so fast, it balloons
your heart and almost
lifts you off the ground.
Keep that blade away
from your torso and
hurt the wielder: two tasks.
Survive somehow: one.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
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Reno
When a man holds a knife
in an alley and his aim
is to stick the knife in you,
your dispersed thoughts
reconvene for a quick
meeting. Adrenalin
floods so fast, it balloons
your heart and almost
lifts you off the ground.
Keep that blade away
from your torso and
hurt the wielder: two tasks.
Survive somehow: one.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Monday, March 7, 2011
When the White Man Told
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When The White Man Told
When the white man told
the Black woman, twice, that
she was naive about race in the U.S.,
his attitude was authoritative,
terse, and humorless. Thus,
we may deduce that he
did not know how risible
his statement was. Sure, it was
possibly frustrating, possibly
infuriating, but also just
goddamned ridiculously,
unwittingly ironic.
And when a report, gussied up
as a poem, observed that a white
man watching a tennis match
between a Black woman and a
white woman made a white man
connect with his white tribe,
a synonym for clan, the report
was many things, but what it
wasn't was complicated,
sophisticated, news, or
helpful. But of course
the white man and the report
had on their side the privilege
of all that confident leverage
that comes from centuries
of heavy, dull, but powerful
weight--I mean, a weight
that hangs around the neck
of the U.S. like an anvil.
A white man myself,
I can easily imagine this white
man, having corrected
the Black woman twice
(or so he imagined),
smiling; and then reading
congratulatory emails
from other white
men and women.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
&
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When The White Man Told
When the white man told
the Black woman, twice, that
she was naive about race in the U.S.,
his attitude was authoritative,
terse, and humorless. Thus,
we may deduce that he
did not know how risible
his statement was. Sure, it was
possibly frustrating, possibly
infuriating, but also just
goddamned ridiculously,
unwittingly ironic.
And when a report, gussied up
as a poem, observed that a white
man watching a tennis match
between a Black woman and a
white woman made a white man
connect with his white tribe,
a synonym for clan, the report
was many things, but what it
wasn't was complicated,
sophisticated, news, or
helpful. But of course
the white man and the report
had on their side the privilege
of all that confident leverage
that comes from centuries
of heavy, dull, but powerful
weight--I mean, a weight
that hangs around the neck
of the U.S. like an anvil.
A white man myself,
I can easily imagine this white
man, having corrected
the Black woman twice
(or so he imagined),
smiling; and then reading
congratulatory emails
from other white
men and women.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Friday, March 4, 2011
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Monday, February 28, 2011
Phases of Poetry-Writing
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Phases of Poetry-Writing
Poets starting out write
poems to please themselves,
one way or another.
Later they write poems
to please others,
then poems to please
themselves and others.
In the next and last phase,
they know what a good
poem is in their way
of writing is and, nothing
personal, they don't care
too much what others think.
Dickinson passed through
these phases all at once
and stayed
in all these phases
simultaneously.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
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Phases of Poetry-Writing
Poets starting out write
poems to please themselves,
one way or another.
Later they write poems
to please others,
then poems to please
themselves and others.
In the next and last phase,
they know what a good
poem is in their way
of writing is and, nothing
personal, they don't care
too much what others think.
Dickinson passed through
these phases all at once
and stayed
in all these phases
simultaneously.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Counter-Invictus
An imitative, improvised response to William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) and his ultra-famous poem, "Invictus":
Counter-Invictus
Out of the day that covers me,
Gray as the gray of dull wool,
I thank what gods may hang around
For reminding me I'm a fool.
When things have gone real wrong,
I've reacted well, badly, or okay,
Sometimes up to the challenge, sometimes
Not: the usual human way.
Beyond this sphere of our mortality
Lies who knows what for sure?
Hell, yes, I'm afraid to die--
To go from here to were.
To say you are the captain of your
Fate is bluster and delusion.
Accidents happen all the time,
And captains experience confusion.
If there's such a thing as fate,
Then it's the Admiral,
And we're just lowly deckhands:
How much can we control?
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Counter-Invictus
Out of the day that covers me,
Gray as the gray of dull wool,
I thank what gods may hang around
For reminding me I'm a fool.
When things have gone real wrong,
I've reacted well, badly, or okay,
Sometimes up to the challenge, sometimes
Not: the usual human way.
Beyond this sphere of our mortality
Lies who knows what for sure?
Hell, yes, I'm afraid to die--
To go from here to were.
To say you are the captain of your
Fate is bluster and delusion.
Accidents happen all the time,
And captains experience confusion.
If there's such a thing as fate,
Then it's the Admiral,
And we're just lowly deckhands:
How much can we control?
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
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