Friday, March 26, 2021

And Hope for the Best

okay, I never starved
and I was white not black
in America

but I've been alarmed
ever since I learned
life ends with death.

then came pageants
of cruelty,
the always prospect

of atomic 
annihilation, and
white kids groomed

by their stupid
parents to hate black
kids--for starters;

a head-on collision
with environmental
doom, sadists

in the workplace.
okay, I've had it good--
for starters; but

still, no wonder
I'm jumpy, reclusive,
bookish, and not

just tired but
existentially weary;
I'm talking old

dog tired. no bombs,
missiles, store
massacres, floods,

fires, new plagues,
attacks on black friends
locally today, so

okay, call it good,
do something for someone,
then grab a nap

and hope for the best
and hope for the best
and hope for the best.



hans ostrom

Strange Feeling

(after listening to Duke Ellington's
"Strange Feeling")


Half the people
who ever insulted
me are dead.

That makes me
feel strange for ever
caring what they said.



hans ostrom 2021

Short Ideas

 

at work she endured
petty tyrants with
pinched faces. back

home, her young son
said, "Walt Disney had a
lot of short ideas."

She laughed and images
of those faces
surely faded.


hans ostrom 2021

The Skipper


on a fishing boat
all day, you feel time
dissolve in water.

offbeat swells shrug
the craft. sun glare
stuns. you sense

the sea's in touch
with forever,
a distant cousin.

headed back to port,
you try to remind
yourself you're you.

gulls shriek, nobody
talks, land magnets
the boat close.

wobbly on a dock,
you again accept
your position: the

skipper of your life.


hans ostrom 2021

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Hobbies?

When English, just coltish,
was trotting around medieval isles,
a hoby was a small, busy horse
that went nowhere. Ah, then
came the hobbyhorse, a child's
plaything, wicker or wood.
Another horse that went nowhere--
and anywhere in the kid's mind.

Look: we need more hobbies,
as we wait for the revolution
we want or dread. Hobbies 
instead of screeching hateful
things, badgering strangers,
firing guns, or guzzling swill
brewed by cults and hustlers.

Yep, carve wood, stitch lace,
raise ancient cars from the tomb
of rust, brood over chess, thump
guitars or keyboards, water
family trees, horde shoe-horns.

More stuff we do should go 
nowhere like a hoby. There's
nowhere to go anyway. We're
just here, Earth. Keep it tidy,
settle in, find something pleasant
about which to obsess
like that aunt of yours who
lived in a hive of Elvisiana.
In your hobby hide from
your worst self, advertisers,
and those who wish no one well. 


hans ostrom 2021


Friday, March 19, 2021

Sometimes You Meet a Very Good Tree

A palm tree, a bit taller than a person:
thick brown-gray hair covers its
trunk, coarse as a horse's mane,
and bark grows in widely spaced
 pieces that curve up and out
in baroque arcs. The trunk is

narrow at the hips, wide at
the chest--like a torch: and it
flames with green fronds. 

Yes, I'm standing there,
rubbing palm hair between
my fingers, starring up,
smiling. This is a tree 
on a mission to amuse
itself. And me. 


hans ostrom 2021


Tuesday, March 16, 2021

Velton Stopped Cheering


(revised)





Velton stopped cheering

at football games

and football

matches when he realized

that no one heard him

above the noise

and so a stadium of silence

rose in his mind

a space that applauded

his separateness, his

sense of Velton himself

sitting, standing, in a crowd,

but not of the crowd,

no not of the crowd. 


hans ostrom 2021

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