Sunday, January 30, 2022

The Angel of Listening

A group's talking, many
voices interlaced,
a lattice-work of gab--

then all talk suddenly 
stops, as if timed: it's
said "an angel just passed

over," and people laugh,
and then buzzing chat
begins again, builds. Yes:

the Angel of Listening. An
angel of thought, ego retracted
like a cat's claw, minds open

like a veranda on a cottage
near a warm sea. If you can,
come by here more often, Angel.

Help us quiet down, and listen,
and let good thoughts, fresh
ideas, breeze in to mix with

our thinking, refurbish knowing. 


hans ostrom 2022

Monday, January 10, 2022

July: North Yuba River

on the North Yuba River
after wheeling mortar
& carrying rocks all day.

wading, casting a fly--
an old tippet coachman
pattern: white goose

wings, peacock feather
body, black-and-orange
tail. rainbow fly for

rainbow trout. canyon getting
blue. your work-shirt
stinks fine, same for

trout-slimed creel. 
lungs of the canyon
draw air past pines

and oaks. the current
knocks against your
legs like a baby goat.

rush of life never never

stops. here you can pause,
know sufficient peace
and privilege in your life.

plenty of fish in the creel--
maybe breakfast tomorrow.
you stay knee-deep in the flow

for the cool, for the quiet
before the day's door 
closes. now in shadow,

bugs hatch and swarm
biblically. trout leap
in jubilee. reel it in.

stick the fly in cork.
listen. riverside, open
and clean the fish, leave

guts for raccoons. climb
up and out, slipping on shale,
grunting. finally up, winded,

standing next to Highway
49's warm asphalt. no cars
now. tourists in the campground,

town people home or at 
the bar. walk in soaked
jeans and boots up to

the old battered car. 
creel in the trunk. grunt
getting in. start her up.

home in less than a mile.
July mountain air sweet
after heat of day. thanks. 


hans ostrom 2022

Sunday, December 19, 2021

Awkward Blues

Do you have
those awkward blues, 
mixing up your
p's and q's?
Lurching in your
scuffed up shoes?

Awkward's not a
mode you choose.
You'd like to take
those social cues,
say right things,
make smooth moves. 

You: born off-beat,
that's all. 
Rather angular,
too short or tall.
More comfortable
against a wall.

Too often, too,
you speak what rises
to your mind--
ignite surprises.
Or go quiet, as
shy advises.

Stride, roll your path,
win and lose.
So you're clumsy:
that's not news.
Croak your own tune,
those awkward blues. 


hans ostrom 2021

Films About Poets

 Reposting one from a while back.


One problem with trying to make a dramatic feature film about poets is that most of the drama in a poet's life occurs in his or her head. A second problem, flowing out of the first, is that the film-makers then try to compensate by focusing on sordid details or on cliche aspects of the alleged "poet's life," such as drinking alcohol, being wild, yadda yadda. A third problem is that, probably, no one should try to "dramatize" the writing process. All of that said, here is a list of movies about poets, pretty much in the order they occurred to me, although I do begin with my favorite:


1. Stevie (1978) It presents her life and doesn't try too hard to dramatize poetry and poets.

2. Priest of Love (1981) About D.H. Lawrence. Not bad. Ava Gardner has a role.

3. The Edge of Love (2008) About Dylan Thomas. Falls into some of the traps mentioned above.

4. Dead Poets Society (1989). A favorite of many. More about poetry and teaching than poets. I liked it all right.

5. Pandaemonium (2000)About Wordsworth and other British Romantic poets. The scenes that try to portray Wordsworth composing are painful to watch. The stuff about literary politics and Wordsworth's ego is good.

6. Beat (2000). Focuses mainly on Burroughs. It's pretty good.

7. Looking for Langston (1988) Quasi-documentary stressing Hughes's sexuality. A fine film--but it really is only about one aspect of Hughes's life, alas.

8. Total Eclipse (1995) Concerning Rimbaud and Verlaine. Very good. With Dicaprio.

9. Dr. Zhivago (1965). Of course, this movie about a lot besides poetry, but the main character is a poet, after all.

10. Beautiful Dreamers (1990). This is the one among the 10 I haven't seen, but it looks intriguing. It's about Walt Whitman. Not great reviews on IMDB, alas.

Friday, November 19, 2021

Inventory after Flood

Last night the river flooded
and hauled away my answers.
I should not have stacked them
so near the bank. I'm left 

with questions stored
in small dry places, bowed
shelves, bitter boxes. So far
the roof is holding.

Rain slaps and pummels
it in surges. I start
to unpack questions.
My smashed answers

roll and twist toward
a delta or a dam or just
rocks on the way. Today
I fret and squirm and

say What are they for?
What are they for? 
This only adds to a stuffed
frustrating inventory. 


hans ostrom 2021

Tuesday, November 2, 2021

Őland

 Őland


(islands east of the Swedish mainland)


We sail past rocks that glaciers
rubbed round, so the square story
goes. Round heads of old monks,
slick heads of seals sleeping on
black-boulder islands.

We’re sailing to a land, Åland.
It belongs to water, a semi-nation of Swedes
governed by Finns, its very-own flag
air-snapped by unconquered winds.

Three old Swedish men, drinking beer
this early morning, mutter
stories of boats, ships, water, and things
that go wrong. “Panama,” they say.
And “Gävle.” “Titta,” they say: Look,
and we pass the rocks past Őland.

The rocks pass us, looking. Things can’t
go wrong with rocks but can go
wrong on them. White swans
fly by. Earth never stops whirling—
so grave story goes. “Ibland,” the men
say. Sometimes. For Ő, which is island,

say O but with tongue lifted to middle,
an island the vibrations flow past
and out through the O into air.
Å is just oh, and oh is just water.

In Waterland, land becomes a sought-after afterthought:
“Oh. . . . Land.” Ibland. Åland. Őland.


1994/2021











Tuesday, October 26, 2021

Abandoned Cistern

A few raindrops 
make it through
brush overgrowing
an ancient cistern.

They make the 
slightest sound
as they hit cool
still water. The

cistern used to be
famous. People 
gathered there. Some
were important

and carried themselves
so. Posture, gestures,
clothes, high talk.
They knew and didn't

know that one day
it would be as if
they'd never been 
anyone, anywhere, 

anything. 

Thursday, October 21, 2021

A Place to Live

I did not dream I was
assembling an encyclopedia
of all the dreams I'd dreamed.

I did dream an old dream
of searching for a place to live
in of all places Davis California--
wandering in a warm anxious
night of delta breezes,
pressed but plodding--
my usual anti-style.
I never find the place, nor
the elusive seminar 
in German that will allow
me to finish the Ph.D.--
retroactively. Short breaths
and writing wake me. 

I've planned
tonight to dream about your
dream--that spectacular one,
full of light--vibrant street
stirring, with that strange
person in a dark cafe 
who asks to know all about
your life but won't listen. 

If this doesn't sound like
something you'd dream,
please tell your subconscious
mind to text me
from the Cloud, and I will
explain further, but the main
thing is I hope you've 
found a place to live. 


hans ostrom 2021

At Any Rate, Fate

It's coming down the mountains.
  It's climbing up the trees.
It's bubbling up from sidewalks
  And rising to my knees.

It knows bad jokes
  I often told and
Knows each time I cried.
  Doesn't care about my failures
Or all those times I lied. 

It is the Master of the Actual,
  the Mistress of Right-Now.
It's Fate that's heading hard my way.
  I don't know When or How. 


hans ostrom 2021

Sunday, October 10, 2021

Midday

(considering Arkady Plastov's 
painting, "Midday," 1961, Russian
Museum, St. Petersburg)

This view will never tell me
what's between the woman and man--
love? Siblings? Friends? It makes me
feel heat lean into their backs

as they lean over that dark wood trough.
Only summer light infuses weeds and
grass this way, gives  them  a furnace
glow. A swooning heat of dreams.

She'd love to bathe, pats her head with
water with her right hand, cups some
in her left. He wants to drink. In
weeds the motorcycle's lean and red,

a bulbous lamp. I say this is a work-
break and think of midday respite
from work in the Sierra. If I stood
with them, I'd used both hands

to cool my face, my neck. I see 
bugs in that grass, youth in those
backs. After the snarl of that bike
fades, I'll slip into the painting,

watch trough-surface tremble,
settle, feel the waterlogged wood,
hear the hiss of grass, feel
sorrow, look for shade. 


hans ostrom 2021

Tuesday, October 5, 2021

Fires in the Pacific West

Blue wood smoke from wildfires
100 miles away choked the copse.

A morose old traveler sat down 
in it beside a pond. He thought At

least the pond's still here. As was
his fear for everything. An

hallucinated frog lifted its head
from the smoke-scummed water

level, said Nothing you will ever
write, say, do, or think will change

this world, okay? The old man
had always loved amphibians,

the great adapters. He asked Should
I stop caring, then?  But the frog

had absented its green mirage, 
and so: alone, talking in the woods.

Even if you try to be loud, your
voice sounds less than the tiny

ratchet-grind of one grasshopper
leaping. Yes, no more caring today.

Only walking. To home. If it's still
there. If not, more walking. 


hans ostrom 2021

Sunday, October 3, 2021

Talking at Night

Maybe you're high, maybe not.
Either way, you're half of 
a conversation that grows
in the night. A seed of chit-
chat roars into a jungle 
of topics, blather, laughter,
and--for this neighborhood,
anyway--deep questions.

You wonder, at the end of 
night, what these are for,
these night talks. Nothing's
bought or sold, no politics
of the moment, name-dropping,
weather, or work. Nor set stories,
thank god. Just talk--

rare these days, these days
when words get nailed to 
walls, kidnapped, suffocated
by intent ignorance, shot dead. 
Just talk, easy as a summer tide.



hans ostrom 2021

Breathing in Blue Lunar Light

He had intended 
to seize the day.
Then night came.
Day slipped away.
He was relieved. 

Night seized him. 
Hot winds and nausea. 
He didn't believe what
he knew or know
what he believed.

Waking, midnight, he
saw blue lunar light
that mellowed air,
turned worries  slight.
He breathed. And breathed. 


hans ostrom 2021