Spring in November

November day, Pacific Northwest--
and Spring came back. It sobbed
thunderstorms, slammed sunlight
into steel clouds, lobbed lightning,
and lit up the sky at dusk like Magritte.

From dark roadways and dim ground,
we may have smiled. Hard to tell
in the Age of the Grimace. Anyway,
Spring knocked a lamp over as it stumbled
back into seasonal order. Across
a muddy field, December
stared like a weary wolf.


hans ostrom 2018

The Rack of Seasons

What a rack of seasons
that was. In January
I fell backward into snow
and was almost buried. Noise
left the world. Someone
pulled me up and tossed
me into Summer, where I
heard a rattlesnake,
broke boulders with
a sledgehammer for minimal
wage, and drank cheap wine,

which tipped me over onto
Spring, where I caught a cold,
grew anxious, and hoarded
books, which opened up
into October, where I stacked
the last haul of firewood--
dry oak from dead trees.
Acorns pebbled the ground
and the North Wind
began to say No.



hans ostrom 2018

Music of Our Days

Behind the high green
muscular hedge (laurel),
a tall black Doberman
holds his howl mournfully.

He hears the red sound
of sirens. It hurts and disturbs
him. Self-soothing, he howls
again but at the end

of this extended note, he
moves the moan up
a half-note. The sound
is unexpected, artistic.

He is called Caesar, this
tall sad dog. Praise him.


hans ostrom 2018

The Matter with Matter

It rolls on. It
rolls over itself as it
rolls through itself.

How could our relationship
to it--matter--be anything
but terrifying?

Terror may be
the original spark
of myth, ideology,

religion: To explain
elaborately so
as to defend ourselves.

Christ, you think
(if you think Christ),
I'm already dead. 


hans ostrom 2018

The Sea Has Its Say

Seas always have their say.
Winds and rivers, too.
They're preparing new things
to tell us, even as
we think we've heard it all.


hans ostrom 2018

October Figs

Finally they've changed
from hard green knobs to small
soft purple pouches, veined.
Inside they're vegetative
geodes. As filtered through
O'Keefe and Lawrence, they
may amuse you with vaginal
likeness. That's fun, but anyway:
harvest. Their deep brown stems
are so soft now, the figs
fall into your palm almost
before the pick. The taste
is outside sweet or savory.
It's creamy, calmly robust.
If you must, think of lust.


hans ostrom 2018

Wittgenstein's Progress

After trying to reduce
philosophy to mathematics,
Wittgenstein went on
to explore a forest
of rhetoric and psychology,
of banter and brain.


hans ostrom 2018

Transformation: Chess

The pawn's a piece of candy.
The bishop is a blade.
The knight, a hook, The rook's
as smooth as jade.

Queen's a budding branch.
King is an hour glass.
Foreheads of the players
shine like brass.


hans ostrom 2018

Petrichor

Earth, the biggest mouth,
moistens as water squats above
in heavy clouds. Before
the burst, you stand and smell
the rain to come, your brain
enthralled by a wet-soil freshness,
a perfume. Petrichor, they
call it, that smell. How long

have hominids savored it?
When the rain arrives, slapping
and drenching, it drives away
the ancient earthy fragance,
replaces it with something
which can't hold you outside.

Inside you're not quite wistful
at a window. You wish you could
have put that odor in a vase.


hans ostrom 2018

Can't Help It

The last red rose of the year

from the Mister Lincoln tree 

lives in this here sentence,

kind of. It exists when I sniff

its luxuriant perfume and when

I tell myself the black nick

on one petal is to be preferred. 

and the petals are fluid sculptures.

Yes, I know, poets and roses,

roses and poets. Can't help it.

hans ostrom 2018

Frail Wishes

Everything seems more fragile now:
my hip, democracy, seas, trees, trust,
wisdom, wolves. I wish dictators
and white supremacy were more
fragile, to the point of collapse.
Such wishes seem especially frail.


hans ostrom 2018

Nuts and Washers

I would tell you what
I'm thinking about but I can't.
Except perhaps in pieces--
debris arriving on shore,
nothing about how the flow
brought it. Here's a piece:
"You can use a nut as a
washer but not a washer as a nut."
I thought something similar
to this (the shape of language
is not the exact shape of thought)
while the thought factory roared
in the background.

It seems much easier to invent
what I'm thinking or give
approximations, tailor them
to conventions of discourse,
and keep moving through life,
remaining aloof from quests,
prophecy, and other forms of
certainty. What do you think?


hans ostrom 2018

Off Your Coast

It looks like I'm just off your coast,
cold in a boat. A night sea's no fun.
A buoy bobs like a clown's head.
Let me into your harbor, please,

not because I imagine I love you
but because I'm cold and you
are warm. Simple as that.
Your lighthouse seems delighted

to see me. I'm turning my back
on it now and rowing. I don't
know if you'll be on the beach.
I know how I'll fee if you are.



hans ostrom 2018