Saturday, July 31, 2021

Mountain Saloon

Darkness in daylight and a sweet
whiskey smell said Hey
to six-year-old me when
my Aunt Nevada opened the door

to the Buckhorn saloon. I
registered a glowing brass
pipe running the length
of a dark varnished bar,

down where feet are. 
An altar of bottles--brown,
clear, green--gathered itself
around a long mirror.

An an antlered deer's head
eyed me. Aunt went back
to get broom, bucket, and mop.
She and Uncle owned the bar. 

After dinner, my dad freshly
showered would fall asleep 
in a chair before going to the
second job: pouring drinks

at this place. Tending bar. 
Caves, tombs, hideouts, 
temples, chapels, dens of
equity, harbors, imagined

carnivals of sex and power:
later I'd learn what dark bars
could become--neon glowing
outside, light in darkness. 


hans ostrom 2021

Competition

competition was a custom
systems craved. you caved

to the carnival of conflict.
sometimes. not your preference.

so now you lean against
an old black oak and watch

them in their ruddy scrums
out there, the promise of glory

palmed long ago by a hustler
who's already out of town. 


hans ostrom 2021

Summer of 2021

Petroleum nightmares sizzle
and burst on smoking sidewalks.

Hurricanes scream at concussed 
cities. Snowflakes fall backward

up to fried skies. Whole forests
collapse into ash, and white zombies

run for Congress, opposing 
knowledge and love. 

It's been quite the summer
so far. To be or not to be

cooked by our dear atmosphere:
that's not the question, but it will

suffice. Mobs chase scientists
across deserts strewn with 

condominium rubble. Coyotes 
watch and laugh. Down the years,

they've smelled our madness.
We condition the air. 


hans ostrom 2021

Monday, July 12, 2021

Ancient Overlap

two crows on a line
watched a man work--

he dug, shoveled, raked.
disinterested as scientists,

the birds sat still, sometimes
taking  mental notes

to add to vast crow knowledge
of their neighbors. sometimes

they lifted a wing and beaked
mites off feathers. now

the man took a break, drank
water, ate a sandwich, tossed

bits of bread on the ground.
the birds dropped softly,

feathered shadows. they 
grabbed a quick lunch, took

their field notes back to the lab
made of sticks. humans,

crows. an ancient overlap
of societies. a relationship. 



hans ostrom 2021


Thursday, July 1, 2021

Envy Isn't Good

So nobody's heard your song
yet. It's still a song. When envy
comes to town, trees droop,
crops fail, children in shops
wail for no reason, and traffic
boils. Surprise: you're alive.
And your oldest neighbor
sits in a chair outside, drinks
iced tea, sighs, feels free.


hans ostrom 2021

Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Detectives

 (homage to Rex Stout and Georges Simenon)


Crime disrespects. It exploits
routine. It is impolite, time-
consuming, and distracting.
Grudgingly, the good detective
identifies those who
should have known better,
most especially the entitled.

Intelligent cooking; sufficient
rest; optional, moderate
consumption of alcohol and
tobacco; solitude; reflection—
these are worth preserving,
even if it means working
for a living, extracting
folly and vice from the milieu.

Hence Jules Maigret and Nero Wolfe,
who would rather be left
alone but are drawn into prose
by their creators, into frays by
fate, necessity, duty. Efficient
plots spring from good manners.

Whatever takes one away from
reading, dining, conversation,
solitude, repose, or—however modest
it may be-one’s enclave must be criminal.
Good manners and good detection
don’t belong to social class but
come from a certain strength of mind.
If only everyone would think things through.

Everyone doesn’t; therefore, detection
is called for, is restoration of balances, is
a bother to be concluded quickly.


hans ostrom 1999-2021

Writer's Sky

a small moleskin notebook
exhumed itself
from a mound of scribbling--

the soft cover sky blue--
except with lavender 
lurking, teasing through.

it reminded scribbler me
of a summer Sierra Nevada
sky on certain days (no

days are certain): cloudless--
a sky that seemed too
blue and weirdly made me

yearn prospectively, wanting
never to leave some vague
paradise in my mind--

known, never visited. 
I recall staring as if sky
were painted like a vast ceiling

above pine trees. and then, yes,
I dropped the gaze, moved on to work
for wages--dust and heat--

pounding nails, digging dirt,
wheeling mortar; & after work
sleeping off a migraine 

in a dark basement,
getting up, sweat dried to shirt,
& scratching in a notebook. 


hans ostrom 2021

Sunday, June 6, 2021

Forest Floor

forested canyon, sierra
nevada--we walked
among conifer columns
standing in living lithe
patience. our booted feet

landed quietly on annual
layers of pine needles,
each level a different color
of time, light tan on top,

and a darkening all the way
down to black fusion 
with soil, reabsorption--

perhaps a resurrection 
with water up, back up into
tree through root and cambrium,
bough, cone, seed, pollen--
or needle again, shaking
green in wind, staying
still in snow. 


hans ostrom 2021

House Sparrows in June

house sparrow--chest
dusted rose--lands on a line,
faces west, sings a languid,
bluesy thing, a call, a tune,
a testimony,

also a satire of communicating
wires and the rest of our mess.

a second sparrow lands--
birds beside themselves. 

more singing, sewed
together as dusk grows
lemony, then orange.

the first bird stops
singing and grooms
the second: time

soon to nest, close
up eyes, rest singing
throat and tongue--
one more day
one more day gone. 


hans ostrom 2021

Tuesday, May 25, 2021

You're Seeing Things

the idiom's "you're seeing things,"
meaning things that aren't there,
things that are not. maybe

a swish of wish fulfillment,
filaments of tropical optical
illusions, fusions of shapes

in the mind behind the eyes.
hope and fear make us tell
ourselves sensory lies. 

in truth (a country hard 
to find), whatever whats
are out there blink in 

and out of form. shiftiness
seems to be the quantum
norm. that's what they say,

the theys that write articles
about particles. we're all seeing--
sensing--things that are/are not

there. every gray boulder's
a bag of flickering electrons.
each crowd of people's an ad

hoc conference of arrivals
and gones. as reality's always
elsewhere, we agree temprorarily

to pretend present forms
can be trusted--can of soup,
freeway loop, chicken coop. 

roosters of routine doodle-do
us awake, and we wake from
one dawning dream into 

another. and another . . . .


hans ostrom 2021

Tuesday, May 18, 2021

A Thing Nearby

old narrow bookcase,

hand-sawed: pinewood

varnished dark, the grain

flowing like a creek at dusk.



traces of the maker's hand

remain--his keyhole saw

and chisel, sandpaper. 

it's good to see the life



in things falsely called

inanimate--spirits of tools,

trees, crafters, days:

evaporated moments way



before I lived. this bookcase

was when I was not. turn now,

see and touch a thing nearby,

retrieve its history alive in your



mind. imagine its granular past

marked by the form of the thing. 



hans ostrom 2021

Garden's Greens

spinach leaves bring
a green so deep
it looks like an ominous
sea. genial lettuces

foreground more 
light in green, sometimes
whisper blond secrets.
kale makes us think

of Russia--tough,
green without sheen,
unafraid of invading
weeds, partial 

to hot soup. carrots,
always recalcitrant,
offer delicate floral
tops at this stage,

suggest positive 
orange thinking under
dirt. and potatoes,
dear spuds in their

group effort. plain
green tops as practical
as old bricklayers.
such lumpen, golden

manufacturing occurs
down there in Tuber
World, a dark quiet
factory. peas and beans:

what to say? so madly
manic in their way.
pods leap out overnight,
tendrils reach and entwine

with weird desire,
and, friend, you had 
better be ready with 
bucket. oh, greens

of the garden, we
bless you, we missed you
in Winter's gray dungeon,
dreaming seed dreams. 


hans ostrom 2021

Thursday, May 13, 2021

Actual Art

Walls of art marching
against sensory perception,
walls exhaust me. Not as much 
as grunt-work at the gravel
plant. Still. Excess of art
fries neurons, sends the self
searching for a burrow.

The Hermitage hit me
like a tsunami. Bus loads
of tourists triggered
a riptide. I ran gasping
to the gift shop. A way
to ease back into reality.

Among postcard re-
productions, I found 
an original print from an
engraving, contemporary
Russian artist. Brown ink.
A simple St. Petersburg
street scene--bridge, river,
stolid building. The cashier,

a lovely woman with Nordic
blue eyes, said, "This is
actually art." "Yes--so glad
I found it," I said. Cold Wars
new and old did not stop
us from agreeing. Somewhere
in St. Petersburg, the artist
toiled at her day job. Outside

the Hermitage with my 
actual art in a brown paper
sack, I accepted September
sun warmth gratefully.
Breathed, the great palace
of art behind my back.


hans ostrom 2021