Thursday, April 28, 2022

Bar Codes

 (revised)


Draperies: and some  folds

bunch together. A tired merchant

tugs them across a whole

window  to hide from retail.


On that day rain came straight

down then wind drove it

into mountains like harp-string

nails. We grew desperate for sun.


Was the wall in that baked town

painted white at first, with black

stripes added later? Or black

first, white lines later?


From my roasting room across

the street, I watched black-and-

white TV. It was a documentary

on geometric zebras. 

Wednesday, April 27, 2022

"A Song in Passing," by Yvor Winters

 Video/reading of Winters' short poem. Winters (1900-1968) taught for many years at Stanford University. He was an independent figure in Modern poetry. 


"A Song in Passing"  link to Youtube

Monday, April 18, 2022

Earth Isn't Worried

Lightning-boiled, roiled
clouds and con-thunder-cussed
air, & down here twisted wind
drives cars and houses into trees.

However Earth is calm. Strata
& old parched channels
rest easy underground. Deep
roots clutch bedrock
& ride the sphere-spin.

Layers of clay and gravel,
lava, sand, loam, and petrified
wood lie together like siblings
camping out. Earth isn't worried. 



hans ostrom 2022

Friday, April 15, 2022

"Like the Touch of Rain," by Edward Thomas

 39-second recording/video of the short lyric poem, "Like the Touch of Rain," by Edward Thomas (1878-1917), English/Welsh poet:

"Like the Touch of Rain" video

National Anthems

If you're a nation,
you need an anthem,
which comes with a flag.

Xenophobia's optional.
although it may not
seem so. Musicians

grind through the melodies
like millers making flour.
Anthems seem to take an hour

when you're waiting for the
game or match or memorial
to start. Hand over heart,

hat off, stand up if you can,
pretend to sing along
the way children do--all

up to you. In America's,
of course, bombs and rockets
go off in the midst of civil

war--which never ends. 
People treat anthems with more
respect than they do humans. 


hans ostrom 2022


Thursday, April 14, 2022

Ice Hockey

(revised)


They're painters on skates

who brush and dab  a cold canvas

they whirl and glide on.


They're sleep-walkers

in pajamas, wandering

on a bright dream's stage--

everyone else in darkness,

looking on, transfixed.


Hornets and wasps

in snarling squads,

swarm out of the nest--

sent mad by one

black fly gliding among

them, a dark dot

playing dead, then jetting off.

Wednesday, April 13, 2022

More Money Than God

Anyone who has any money,
even a thoughtless penny,
has more money than God:

in what universe would God
want cash, coins, credit, creepy
crypto-grift, currency, micro-

change, stocks, bundled bonds,
bullion, or any token that smokes
with agreed upon mullioned

meaning? I swear to God, 
billionaires have become 
like Zeus and his merry band

of psychopaths on a celebritized
Olympus. Metastatisized wealth.
Yes, excess morphed into abscess.


hans ostrom 2022

Monday, April 11, 2022

Preferable Dusk

Do Parisians still call dusk
l'heure bleue? I should ask

the internet gods. At sundown
in the Sierra Nevada, green

pine trees seem gold, sift
mild breezes. You sense

raccoons, deer, and coyote
getting ready for the night-shift. 

Rustlings in the brush. I've 
always felt more dread at dawn

than dusk. Jaws of jobs I hated
waited then. Fresh evils

and the cackling of the pious
lurk in morning headlines. 

Dusk equals After Work, a time
to cook and think, to hear

jazz or savor silence, to sniff
the darkling air--like a coyote. 


hans ostrom 2022



Sunday, April 3, 2022

Beside a Farm Pond

On the green pond
faint ripples roll slowly,
just kiss the bank. Beside
this quiet water, you don't
have to pretend to know.

Unseen fish snooze
in mud. Frogs--they grunt
and chirp. Birds flit and fly
and riff their trills. It isn't

nature out here. It isn't
anything you have to name.
Eyes wide open, you sit
in nowhere. You're here, it
seems. What seems? It. 



hans ostrom 2022

Thursday, March 31, 2022

"Small Poem for April"

This small poem honors

smooth blue pebbles,

waking up to a local

bird chorus each day,


the price of pollen

(sneeze-blasts), stalwart friends,

more and more and more light,

fair wages, and rest.



hans ostrom 
2018/revised 2022

Saturday, March 26, 2022

"What Survives," by Rainer Maria Rilke

Recording/video of a short poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by A. Poulin, approved for use for educational purposes, taken from allpoetry.com site. Langstonify youtube channel. 

https://youtu.be/YGlrJDLcZKQ

Thursday, March 24, 2022

The Rose Robe

(La rose robe [1864] painted by  Jean Frédéric Bazille)


the rose robe glowed,
holding its own light,
as last sunlight shone
on white buildings
down there in the town.

she sat on a broad
stone ledge, taking
a break from house
and people too self-
involved to care about
a mild breeze 
that each evening 
met her and teased trees.

she rested her long, strong
brown arms, letting hands
lie on a night-black apron.
What she thought
was no one's concern
but hers. cool air

found her neck 
and shoulders. her tired
feet in gray house 
shoes napped on stone
like two cats.

she'd sewn the pink
robe's sleeves herself
before summer settled,
knowing how they'd 
sit above her elbows
on evenings just like

this one. like her,
women down in town
longed to linger outside
stuffy rooms,
to think, and to listen to
sparrows sing 
themselves to sleep 

as stray charcoal clouds
drifted across
a chalk-blue sky. 

hans ostrom 2022

Monday, March 21, 2022

Trust and the Old Tree

You can rely on certain
people until. Until. 

An old tree knows
in its fibers that sky

giving rain and sun
might one day blast

with lightning. That
the mountain holding

soil and root-anchoring
rocks might one night

smash with a boulder-
brutal landslide or

a roaring avalanche. 
Trust is always contingent,

temporary. Is really not
to be trusted. It's the

sturdiest kind of hope.
Sway with it as it lasts. 


hans ostrom 2022