Wednesday, March 24, 2021
Hobbies?
Friday, March 19, 2021
Sometimes You Meet a Very Good Tree
Tuesday, March 16, 2021
Velton Stopped Cheering
Monday, March 8, 2021
Old Man, I'm Talking to You
[revised a bit]
Friday, March 5, 2021
All Electric Poem
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
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.
missed ferry
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.
Wednesday, February 24, 2021
many things are happening at once
Monday, February 22, 2021
I Say Gray Boulder
(revised a bit)
Friday, February 19, 2021
Baseball and Relativity
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
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.