Monday, March 8, 2021

Old Man, I'm Talking to You

 [revised a bit]


Old man, I'm talking to you. I am you: 
I didn't used to be, no--I used to fly past
on a train. You'd be sitting on a bench
at the station--gray eyes, gray sweater,
a blur of inert age. And I? Well, I

was all tendon-taut, unfraught, lithe,
and smug with youth. Uncouth. I was
on my way to . . . to here, as
it happened, and it's happened.

I'm sitting, situated at the station now,
too, talking to you, old man. Here
comes the rain. Here comes a train.


hans ostrom 2013/2021

Friday, March 5, 2021

All Electric Poem

This poem used to sound
like a gargling dinosaur,
for it ran on petrol. Now
it's all electric and whirs
like an old cat's throat.

My friend rode with me--
she said, "You know, 
the poetry rush hours
will soon go quiet, will
slither soundlessly along
like traffic pythons."

Home now. I've plugged
in the poem to solar
power. It's sipping electrons,
blithely ignorant of
Daytona, of Monaco. 


hans ostrom 2021


In Heaven (If Heaven)

in heaven (if heaven)

laughter must surely roll

in endless echoing squalls 

when former people speak

of achievements, wealth,

and fame--then catch

themselves, seeing successes

as less than a dissolved

banana peel in a garden 

compost; and giggling with

others and others and others,

everybody foolish and free,

nothing to prove, no one to prove

it to in heaven (if heaven).


hans ostrom 2021

Wednesday, March 3, 2021

oh memory, oh winter bee

memory seems like a silver
city, a golden continent, a
paisley planet. but if you ventured
to Past, you'd land
in a swamp of minutes,
a humidity of duties,
nettles of the now,
and the who you were then.

my god, memory's a façade,
a sliding presentation to yourself,
the greatest hits and duds.
life is thick as mud, as
tangled as a junkyard,
an all-at-once crammed
into thimbles and shot glasses.

you long to go back sometimes,
a winter bee honeyed with glee
for the buzzing of what was.
you can't go, because and because.


hans ostrom 2021

missed ferry

you missed the ferry. waited
on that loaf-shaped green island,
glum on a soggy slick dock.

I waited on the other dock.
saw then the ferry coming,
a floating cake. here

you came. smiles and a
hug in rain. I thought of
how many humans had met,

will meet like this, down
through wet and dry centuries,
after crossing water, deserts,

mountains... then I crossed
back to the moment, heard how
your voice shaped words,

lit laughter. your laughter.


hans ostrom 2021

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

many things are happening at once

child sees dog 
on grass, points,
laughs. dog sniffs
air, spongey damp
nose quivers, tail
writhes. crow
lands on branch,
child says "caw,
caw, caw!" crow
eyeballs child. clouds
under blue hurry,
rush, late for something.
cars pass, loud
metal beasts, they
amaze child. father
takes child's hand,
tugs dog with
leash. child laughs.
father smiles. crow
says "caw, caw,
caw!" child laughs. 


hans ostrom 2021

Monday, February 22, 2021

I Say Gray Boulder

(revised a bit)

I say that gray boulder will always be
there, knowing it won't be--but not until
I am no longer. I say it because
I need at least a stone to stay
there, where it sits 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 sank into
the sea of sight, thought,
light, impulse--that sensation all children
know but don't know they will lose.
I say "that gray boulder," and I know.
I say "gray boulder" and I smile.


hans ostrom 2021

Friday, February 19, 2021

Baseball and Relativity

Einstein hated games,

perhaps because the universe

plays for keeps. A curveball


curves and dives only on 

Earth, which functions by

its own attractive rules.


That moment after a hometown

hero (last week a goat, love

is relative) strokes a fastball,


rejecting its trajectory, bottom

of the ninth, lasts for a gasping

forever. An entire childhood


passes, then rises into an adult

roar, crashes into stadium space,

assisted by moons of adrenalin.


Everyone, including physicists,

shuffles out, treading on wrappers,

kernels, and ticket stubs,


heavily held to life again,

to the heroism of just getting

by, glued to illusory Now. 


hans ostrom 2021

The Domestication of Cats

Cats domesticated themselves--how
could it have been otherwise?--ten
thousand years ago. Farming brought

grain, which brought rodents, which
enticed cats out of the forest. Impeccable
feline logic connected such exquisite

dining with the large lumbering 
two-legged beasts who made such noise,
lived in crowds but were lonely,

and couldn't resist two moon-eyes
glowing at them. That cold stare
above a permanent frown and below

radar ears, the subterranean surf
of purring, day-long languor, 
explosive honed rage: all of it

belongs to a calculation that padded
out of timber and brush, sniffed, leered,
hired us, and moved in. 


hans ostrom 2021

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

No One Home

Light lives here, comfortable anywhere,

Especially in darkness. Appliances quibble:

A refrigerator toils

Constantly for cold, a furloughed

Oven chortles with its pilot light,

A furnace mimics a howling wind.


Astoundingly, all clocks here agree.

You aren’t about, except in DNA 

Traces, scents in a bed, a crumbed

Dish in a sink. Now emerges a cat,


Walking on hushed paws, Interrogating

Silence for slightest

Noise, sniffing for food at floor level, 

Owning the place with power far beyond

Your sad legalities. When your key


Teases the lock, the place gets a little

Sad, as in you’ll stomp with your

Beastly size, baggage, and 

Unconscious belligerence. 


Wednesday, February 10, 2021

Hope Is the Original Revolution

 

While I’m waiting for the Revolution,

I’m going to wash clothes,

Turn soil in a vegetable garden,

Cook meals, read books, and sleep.


While I'm  waiting for the Revolution,

I’ll clean the toilet, take out

The garbage, cook meals, read books,

Eat,  and sleep.


While we’re waiting for the Revolution,

We’ll go to work to earn our pay,

Listen to what people say, and wonder

Whether, when the Revolution comes,


It will make things better, worse, or

The same. I’m not here to buy or sell

Or blame. I’m just saying revolutions rarely

Turn out well because power plus weapons


Make for hell. The revolution isn’t up to

Me. I could tell myself otherwise,

And tell other self-deluding lies. 

I get enough of that already. I know


Some people who need clothes and food.

I take them some, so very little, nearly nothing,

Once a week. I’m weak, I’m small, I’m one

Among us all. While I’m waiting, also


Dreading, the Revolution, I’ll do what I’ve

Done ever since idealism got away from

Me. Tasks in front of me. I wish I could do

More, but wishing doesn’t get


The dishes done. I hope you still have

Your idealism. There’s nothing like it.

It opens big spaces in the mind

And in the future. It’s a kind of


Revolution in itself. Even as you

Work and read and sleep and fall

In love, it fires up your spirit

And opens up your hope. Your hope. 

Saturday, February 6, 2021

Date Palms in San Diego

 [slightly revised]


Calm palms in San Diego look like crooked
columns composed of brown-gray stones stacked
slowly over years by Franciscan monks. When
the columns reach a height uncertain, bladed
fronds formally erupt. Golden dates
materialize, suspend themselves like surreal
swarms of gemstones. A brown-grey bird

stretches upside-down to pick a piece
of date-flesh with its beak. Pacific breezes
nudge softly like seduction. The tapered
columns bend, nod, never topple. Flexibility
of vegetation, patience of stone: palm.


hans ostrom 2021

Wednesday, February 3, 2021

Apertures


Life imposes on us.
Memory superimposes,
layering life’s imprints.

Into an aperture
between life and memory
moves the photographer,

who listens to light,
convenes shadows,
constructs position.

In the dark room,
life and memory wait
while hallucination bathes,

inscribes itself on a
pane of white-space,
coalescing like epiphany

and now rising from the
translating pool, prepared
to confess to eyes.



hans ostrom, circa 1990/2021