Saint Anonymous

I pray to Saint Anonymous,
a martyr without publicity.

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

quite manage to move past
confusion to reach rudimentary

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

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

suggesting neither comfort nor
salvation but not-so-merely

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

the circumstances in which we
the perplexed find ourselves.


hans ostrom 2018

More Lies

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


hans ostrom 2018

The Letter L Gathers Intelligence

Xylophone, chlorophyll--
tones of green tunes.
Isopropyl, pteradactyl,
prophylactic: in each
of such words, the letter

L functions as a secret
agent. Yes, we found polygamous
platypus written on plain
papyrus but alas the key

to the code evaporated
long long ago.




hans ostrom 2018

Pope Pourri

pontiff, pope, papa.
paparazzi photograffiti vatican
man. Point If, on the coast of doubt,
where lives holy fatherson's

ghost. what toppings does
the top-of-the-Church
like on his pope-pizza?
geez, a woman really

ought to be pope soon,
breaking the arthritic
seal on a new era
that can breathe, a boon.

and let priests have
consensual sex if they
want to and even the pontiff too
if he-she has such a friend, or two.

time to re-sort-out which credos
are credibly from an above
and which are human edicts from
let's face it obsolete cultures.


hans ostrom 2018

Solitary Book

She's a solitary book. She
wants a shelf all to herself.

She's well printed inside
and bound with a durable,

beautiful cover. She's full
of ideas, pathos, and humor.

Sometimes she invites me in.
There it is a local heaven.

From her name and table
of contents through to the

colophon, back and forth
I go along innumerable paths,

knowing her story in some
of its endless ways. It's never

long before she sends me away.
She likes a shelf all to herself

and is most comfortable when
closed.



hans ostrom 2018

sierra nevada

sierra nevada see
air over nevada
serrated novena
snow sloughed redoubt

quartz veins in diorite
and granite, vanity
goes viral for gold
blast rock haul ore

or give up. for it is
written it shall be
hidden, gold generally
hides in specific gravity

gravely. washo and maidu
watched euro-waves crash
flash in the pans & rockers
sheer face of bluffs onlooked


hans ostrom 2018

culinary difficulty

culinary difficulty
your goose is cooked
you're all shook up
a chafed chef

the sou chef
vouchsafed for you,
said you can dish it out
after you bake it

par course par boil char
boil loyal to butter
salt and cream, utter
and scream, slow-

roast a daydream
of opening your own
someday restaurant
restore rant, saucy savant


hans ostrom 2018

white folks crazy

white folks crazy
lazily leaning
on a rotten post--
souperiority

one may try
to divest his
her their whiteness--
not so fast, say

the structures
holding one.
ruptures of these
structures

i do perceive--
but: too few,
too narrow.
it is very, very

late: 1619-2018,
and a White Supremacist
in the White House.
of course even

1620 was very late--
it should have stopped
then, should not have
started, white folks crazy


hans ostrom 2018

Five-Syllable Aria

For him, opera is a world
where people converse
in shrieks, shouts, cries, and
wails. (Too much like his family.)

Even an operatic comedy
sounds like catastrophe to him.

Right away, the first notes,
opera is too much for him.
Instantly it exhausts him.
Defeated, he sleeps until

a sweet whisper in his ear
sings, "It's over. Let's go."
The five-syllable aria
transports his would.


hans ostrom 2018

And the Frogs Croaked "Affidavit"

I think an affidavit should be something
different from a legal statement. An affidavit
should be a mythical bird or a frenetic folk dance.
Or perhaps a ritual response in a liturgy.
(Affidavit, affidavit, said the assembled, gravely.)

I was listening to some frogs last night, The
dear frogs, moist creatures enamored of moonlight.
They just kept croaking affidavit, loud and crisp,
with syncopation borrowed from another aural plane.
The amphibious chant mesmerized me. Down

the years it has done that, for I have listened to frogs
my whole life, and I will sign a statement to that effect.


hans ostrom 2018

Implied Narrative from a Language Lesson

(translated)

Can you please be a little more
quiet? I want to hug you. I
want to kiss you. I need to use
the bathroom. I want to move here.



hans ostrom 2018

Good News: You Seem to Exist

"That there is something is the first, most obvious, and best known thing conceived by our intellect and all the rest follows" --Umberto Eco, Kant and the Platypus 

"I think; therefore, I am"--a bit self-centered,
Rene. "It is, even if it's not what it seems

or seems different depending who or what
records the seeming"--awfully inelegant--
but better? Here's the thing:

something exists. Can I I be more specific?
Can the something? The questions answer
yes implicitly, being more specific themselves.

Here is a word: exits. Exits exist, or seem so to you
and so they do, and therefore so do you, so take one

to a fine and rational place.


hans ostrom 2018

Thumpers

Hail Grace, full of Merry, how
does your garden grow? And another
thing: why are people
who are full of hate and empty
of sense in charge of things?
Is it just tradition?

Blessed art art, at least
it's a vector in which to stuff
the rage of futility, the roar
of despair. Jesus, Christians

have made up a bunch of crap
about you, turning you into
a white supremacist policer of sex
& gender and a lobbyist for guns and greed.
They preach the "gospel of wealth."
No, really. Thugs, they really
thump the love out of the Bible.


hans ostrom 2018

An Under-rated State of Being

Beside a creek, we discussed creeks.
At a table we talked of American
depravities--acidic combinations
of sex-policing, racist hate, and greed.

In a bookstore, we spoke of sex.
In many places, we used language
to evade. Hiding, we sometimes
told the truth. We asked questions

in anger, illness, lust, inebriation,
shock, exhaustion, and fear. We
fiercely expressed certainties
that, seen later, were all wrong.

At our best, we had nothing to say and
said nothing: an under-rated state of being.



hans ostrom 2018

You Take Requests

You're performing every night
inside your head. You play piano,
you play shame. You play

dream flute and percussive
regret. You turn rain into harp
strings and fear into drums.

A low tuba of worry
supports an anxious violin.


hans ostrom 2018

The Talk Artist

She kept talking. I let her talking
be the sound of a creek, an abstraction
made of sound waves.

Then her talking began to sound
like a sea, rising and retreating.
It mesmerized me.

"Does that make any sense?"
she asked. I roused myself
from hearing to answer:

"Yes, and it's beautiful in its
own way," I said, referring
to her talking. That

induced her to talk more.
She was a compulsive talk artist.
She talked as if to breathe.



hans ostrom 2018

Our Magic Shows

I am a salamander.
Your are a butterfly.
You are an eel,
and I am a walrus.

I am a sand flea,
and you are an eagle.
You are an armadillo.
I am an owl.

As you well know,
you and I change forms
quite often, at least in
the magic shows

we improvise so as
to keep each other entertained.



hans ostrom 2018

On Being a Professor

Being a professor
is like being a lounge singer.
It's hard work.

Small crowds
with big expectations.

You develop your act.
Then you memorize it.
Finally it memorizes you.


hans ostrom 2018

Hello, Gray Salamander

Among the events occurring
in the universe today, one featured
a convergence of the life patterns
belonging to a salamander and me.

Ambystoma gracile is the alleged
name of this plump salamander's kind,
habitat--Pacific Northwest. Size of
a small lizard, gray on top, orange

like a fiery sunset underneath.
The head-lamp eyes were firmly
closed, he circular toes
mythically delicate. A chill

had wedged A. gracile between
nap and coma on concrete.
I picked it up by the tail
and moved it near a pink azalea

so crows wouldn't spot it.
It arced its body in slumber
and opened its mouth to mime
complaint before I set it down.

Our meeting has made me
committed to becoming
an affiliate member of the Pacific
Northwest Salamander Society.


hans ostrom 2018

Chewing Moon

As I reached for the moon,
it shrank to the size of my hand.
Then it turned into a disc
no thicker than a sandwich.

Coincidentally, I took two
bites out of it. The texture:
that of sugar granules.
Taste: smoky lemon.

The moon in my hand bled
dark green where my teeth
had seized lunar flesh. Stung
by self-rebuke, I put the moon

back where I had found it, or
almost. It healed in its orbit.


hans ostrom 2018

Bar Codes

Draperies, and some of the folds
bunch together. The merchant
has pulled them across the whole
window in order to hide from customers.

Rain came straight down that day.
At the same time, wind plowed
it into mountains like harp strings.
We were desperate for beauty.

Was the wall in that baked town
painted white at first, with black
stripes added later? Or black
first, white lines later?

From my roasting room across
the street, I kept asking such
questions in my stupor,
in my visitor's defeat.


hans ostrom 2018

It Will Be Our Secret

Tell me a secret. One
that belongs to someone else.
Change the name to prevent
feelings of betrayal--or glee.

Indeed, alter the secret.
Create, embellish. Make
it as rare as you want.
Too weird: What does that

that even mean? Go ahead,
tell me the awful inside
knowledge you've invented.
It will be our little secret.


hans ostrom 2018

The Second Syllable is "Vice," After All

I have some advice for you.
Actually--no, no I don't.
I suppressed it. What a relief
for both of us I think you will
agree. Advice is well intended

only 6% of the time, well
received 3%. As to its
efficacy, that would be
lower than 3%. It's mostly
old news, bad memory, a

control-tactic, a hunk of blather,
or just plain wrong.  I just advised
myself not to give advice unless asked,
and even then . . . .I'm taking
my advice. Someone has to.


hans ostrom 2018

Notebook Problems

He flipped through his notebook
til he found a blank page.
Before he could write on it,
words materialized by themselves:

Your are very far away
from where you ought to be.
The truth of this statement
deflated him. He waited

for more words to appear. Some
did: Turn the page now, and write. 


hans ostrom 2018

Blood Estuaries

Blood estuaries, the slaughter arts,
and radioactive crania of psychotic
power-addicts all have me a bit on
ledge. Industrial Whiteness

sells bigot spigots, 90 days
same as cash. Keep the hatred
flowing is their slogan. A
certain segment of the public

weaponizes Jesus and beats up
people who know facts.
Dictators proliferate worldwide
like syphilis chancres.

Ignorance is tidal.
Civilization's suicidal.


hans ostrom 2018

A Visit to the Sun Building

Why are you here? asked
the moon people in the sun building.
By mistake, I replied, adding,
Anyway, hello. They said

if I were to stay,
I would have to conform.
A tempting offer. But no,
for I saw there already

things that rankled. After
my departure, I walked
under invisible stars
and put money in the cardboard
coffer of a street musician
who sang of asteroids.


hans ostrom 2018

Miffle's Expanding Tardiness

Miffle asked Lubi what time it was.
Lubi said, "It's the eternal present
of an expanding universe." Krokson

interrupted the two. He said,
"Actually, it's about five minutes
after the eternal present of an

expanding universe." "Oh,
Hell," said Miffle, "in that
case, I'm late!" "For what?"

asked Lubi. "I don't know,"
replied Miffle. Krokson said,
"That's unfortunate--for now

your tardiness may expand not
unlike the universe.



hans ostrom 2018

At Motel Depression

At Motel Depression, you're just not interested.
You recall what being interested is like,
but it's a proper tall hotel in another part of town.

Best not to strain against the circumstances.
See the salt-and-pepper screen of the broken
TV. Guess the age of the smelly drapes.

Toss your clothes on the embattled chair.
The painting is a kind of punishment.
No moaning, no wailing, please:

the walls are thin. Keep the sheets
between you and the blankets. There's
a good chance you'll check out tomorrow.


hans ostrom 2018

Facts and Oxygen

We need a system.
We need a Boris or a Jean.
We don't need a judge,
but we do need a day with a
stream in it.
We need facts like we need
oxygen: no substitutes.


hans ostrom 2018

Cigar Smoke is Thick and Blue

"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

--psychiatrist Allen Wheelis (1950), who credited the statement to Freud


Sometimes a cigar
isn't a cigar, such as after
it's been smoked
and the remaining brown wad
has gone away.

Then the cigar
becomes particles
as well as neural bits
of cigar-likenesses,
or a word in a story
about that one night
and its cigars.



hans ostrom 2018

Concerning Cricket

A Cubist concoction of layered planes,
seems cricket. A match progresses
in a stiff-legged imperial ballet
with yachting costumes. Scoring

is prolific, as with stock markets.
There are slap-bats and wee wooden
sticks--quite droll. Cricket is so
very, very something, far afield

from clarity but highly ordered,
bright and secretive. Sedate, surreal.




hans ostrom 2018

Eye Doctor

Asked to read lines of letters and numbers projected
on a wall, my eyes confuse G with O and 2 with Z.

The doctor puts large drops of rain in my eyes,
and my eyes get stoned.

He puts a contraption on his head. To my eyes,
it makes him look like a cyborg ant-eater.

A gentle torturer, he shines bright light behind
my eyeballs, and I feel like I'm in a movie from 1971.

He tells me I have "divergence inconsistency"--one
eyeball's a lazy focuser, or is on a work slow-down.

When the doctor giggles, he sounds like Jim Backus
as Mr. Magoo. My ears see the humor in this.


hans ostrom 2018

Angel with a Punch

I met a counter-punching angel.
She didn't strike with fists and kicks.

Glances delivered her rebukes.
So too did words full of biting angel wit.

Her effect on her targets is conclusive.
I myself felt like giving up on petty

pretense and posing pride, and at
that instant the angel's smile spread wide.


hans ostrom 2018

Semi-Descript Suburb Somewhere

In a semi-descript suburb somewhere,
people believe in Counting Your Blessings
and First World Problems. Some
even get the idea of privilege.

But hedges there become overstuffed
couches. Rain hardens into visual
static. Before people go to work
elsewhere each day, they lie down

on lawns and gnash their teeth
and lash their consciences with
shaming pep-talks. The contents
of one house there rarely

interacts with those of another
house, and this include people.
Everyone's regrets pile up, become
invisible drifts that never melt.


hans ostrom 2018

Another Last Page

Here we are at another
last page. No need

to revisit what's
previous. It's just a

last page, not the end
of books. Open

the drapes. See what's up
out there with light.


hans ostrom 2018

Terms and Conditions

"not because blue pill"

      --fragment from the old online deluge


Not because blue pill
have I seen shards of epic
gibberish & websites blocked
error 404 forbidden you do not
have access, note that you

is neither formal nor familiar
in algorithmese. Search,
surf, just-type-in, click
to download, take a trip
on a keyboarding ship,
reach your destination in
the slink, on the sly.

Ultimately every download
loaded down must become
a disappointment & you feel
as if you're clerking on a volunteer
basis for authoritarian bots. All

manner of things shall be well
when you use two-step verifcation
and, well, have your credit
card info including security
ready. You must fill in required
fields, approve terms and conditions.


hans ostrom 2018

Dream Snow Leopard

I haven't seen
the snow leopard
in dreams. I know
it's there behind
mind's mist or
inside subconscious
caves. The psychic

snow leopard
is meant to be
absently present.
It represents something,
I can't know what,
perhaps just itself.

It is a messenger
sent from forever
and never quite
arrives. Its eyes
follow me now,
is my surmise.


hans ostrom 2018

Dutiful Blues

He saw that she,
like him, was locked
into an acceptable life
that held no interest
anymore. They

exchanged polite
comments, maybe
at a cafe or on the job.
The glances they
shared never found

words because words
can involve truth
and risk. Each had
decided to plod
along their separate,

acceptable paths.
Both were made sluggish
by the weight of
boredom and
frustration. Their

existential crisis remained
bland--never boiled over.
Poignant that both
saw in the other a case
of the dutiful blues.


hans ostrom 2018

No Crisis, No Crescendo

On a night-train to Athens,
I met a woman from Gunnison,
Colorado.  She had blond hair
and seemed self-contained.
I could tell she traveled well.

Together we counted the stops
until the stop we wanted.
There'd been an earthquake.
Greeks out late at night had
much to say, much to smoke.

We walked to her hotel. She
kissed me thanks on my cheek.
Her perspiration smelled
sweetly metallic. I walked to my hotel,
knew no one in the city. An exhausted
desk-clerk looked like she hoped
I wasn't an overbearing American.

I complied. In the cheap room I
wanted to see the woman
from Colorado again and knew
I wouldn't. On with the flow.
These stories that aren't stories
are more important to me than
ones with crises or crescendi.
They are the life.


hans ostrom 2018

He Finds It Very Unsatisfying

He tells me the same fantasy
visits him often, coming around
like a city bus. A woman takes
him in: the main plot. She sorts out
his confusions. Comprehends.

She is bemused. Of course
there is sex. The genre's fantasy,
after all. It's the understanding
occurring before sated lust
that appeals, he claims.

He doesn't need to figure out
what the woman wants. She
tells him what. He's enough
and amuses her.  Triangulations
of pretense and wasted effort

disappear. Her perfume smells
great. So does she. Her sense
of irony, her management
of him and desire, create a
palace of satiety.  She's not

put off by words like satiety.
But it's just a fantasy, he says.
A real bus never comes round.
Where is she? Is she? She reclines
in an oasis. He thirsts.


hans ostrom 2018

So It Goes

The scene's a blue barge
on a green river. Twilight.
Many lights on land: a
society, a world. The illusion

of a fixed place moves
away from me like a barge.
I am a point of view, a wry
observer on a river dock.

Then I am of the darkness
falling. Then I'm the
darkness itself, then
nothing, & I am not.


hans ostrom 2018

Hawks Don't Often Perch That Low

A hawk, bedecked in variegated
brown feathers, had parked on a low,
thick fence post. I walked by on
a muddy road. The hawk ignored

me, also two horses grazing in rain.
What did domestication and the
privileges of an American horse
farm have to do with his carved

beak and mythic talons? Just before
the bird leaned forward, pre-flight,
I squinted to see through rain
and wondered what a hawk's

thought looks like. The gone
hawk left that topic open,
and I went on plodding
down the sodden road.


hans ostrom 2018

At a Reservoir of Inquiry

Warm winter day at
a California university:
this one's origins lie
in agriculture. Between
academic terms, the campus
is deserted. Squirrels

maintain their studious
consumption of acorns
raining from valley oaks
that have mused over
millions of scholars
down the decades.

One squirrel runs
up the steps of the Success
Center, which is closed.
The current campus
populace will flood in
soon, filling the reservoir
of inquiry as feudal
stupidity reigns on the
other side of the continent.



hans ostrom 2018

Dante Alighieri Finds Out Valentina Lodovini Lives on Earth

Dante went to the movies. In the film
he saw,  Valentina Lodovini played
a main role. Even if she had appeared
in just one scene,  Aleghieri
still would have phoned Beatrice
from the lobby afterward to say
he was finally moving on from her.

Dante hadn't met Signora Lodovini
yet, but watching her likeness in motion
for two hours destroyed all his adjectives
concerning beauty and allure.

He wanted to listen to Valentina talk
for a long time, hear her laugh. His
desires didn't stop there, but he reigned
them in out of respect. After all, he
was a Catholic, and as inventor of
Hell Circles, he had a reputation
to uphold. He put it all in God's hands,
as most medieval Italian poets would.

The image of the Lodovinian bright
brown eyes, full of mischief and wisdom,
and of the dark brown hair and rapturous
proportions, all these became Dante's
new mental companions.

It was all too much to bear.  Not really.
He recalled the noble shape of her nose
and her poise as an actor. He wondered
what might make her laugh: perhaps
the sight of an ancient poet in a tunic
going to a 21st century movie? Droll.

There was nothing for it. Dante looked
at his phone.  Beatrice had texted him.
He ignored her. He decided to go home
and to try to find a Valentina Lodovini
film or series on Netflix. He felt sure
that God would understand. God never
ran out of adjectives for beauty and allure.



hans ostrom 2018