Sunday, June 19, 2022

Ragusa, Sicily: Festival Blues

At the Alta Villa Trattoria in Ragusa,
Sicily, as the St. Giorgio fest rolls
to a finish, you listen to small brass
bands haul their marches through
sun heat up toward the baroque 
cathedral, which manages to seem
at once imposing and cute. It's where

a solid silver ark holds "the bones
of various saints," an old man told you. 
George, the saint that counts, remains
forever young in painted wood, gentle
face, white horse, sharp lance. Later,

in an evening without breeze, everyone's
had about enough of whatever they thought
they'd come for in the festival. A hard woman
with a fish tattoo stuffs her phone in her jeans,
disgusted. She'll argue with anyone who 

wants to and some who don't. A toothless
ex-boxer is spruced up in an official white
shirt and red bandana. The Alta Villa 
Trattoria's mostly for locals. It's a living.
Nearby, the guy who sells hand-made
puppets plays Ella Fitzgerald all day,

so I stay, buying enough coffee & water,
salads &sandwiches, & bottles &
bottles of water to pay my way. 


"Memory of My Father," by Patrick Kavanagh

 Reading/video of a short poem by Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967), well known Irish poet and novelist:

"Memory of My Father" video

Saturday, June 18, 2022

Closing Time

 

Tonight my cabaret of fears

glowed and hummed.

A band played anxiety

in sharp keys. We asked

the bartender to remove

his Death costume and put

away the scythe. Insulted,

he yelled, “Drink up, last call!”

A good time was not had by all.


hans ostrom 2022

Sunday, June 12, 2022

Treasure Enough

 slices of yellow peach

with a few blueberries

in a bowl. some water

and homemade bread.


outside, birds make

raucous noise, manic

after rain-showers. all

this is treasure enough.



hans ostrom 2022

Monday, June 6, 2022

Sunday, June 5, 2022

The Bees Work in the Rain

The bees work in the rain. Some climb

Into the orange of poppies, some

Into the blue and purple lavender.


So cold, so wet so late this year.

We have the Winter blues in June,

While elsewhere draught and fire say


The future's now. Do not begrudge the rain,

We whisper to our consciences, which will

Not hear. I dive into the weeding,


Get wet and chill and caked with mud.

But it's all right, as everything

From peonies to roses now


Is bursting into bright, and bees

Work in the rain and don't complain,

Must move the nectar now into the hives.


hans ostrom 2022

Concerning Bob the Bull

         (Lincoln, California)


I'm feeding sweet green clover

to a black and white bull

under powder blue sky. Through


silver fencing, I poke the offering,

a gesture of friendship to Bob

the bull, bedeviled by black flies


and close farm heat. Bob stares

and sniffs. Leans into me, almost

breaks my hand--a gesture


of friendship. I talk, he listens.

He snorts, sucks cud, and grunts.

I listen. I poke more green past


that glue-thick slobber on his black

lips, past his keyboard of square

ivory teeth and onto a pale pink


slab of tongue. Bob accepts

the clover without chewing.

He has a lot going on.


His patience in the midst

of fly-swarms and de-horning

outstrips Zen perfection. I tell


Bob of his greatness. Mourn

with him his lack of cow

companionship. His mucous


drips like icicle melt. We'll not

meet again--a scheduling thing.

I feel a sadness as sweet as


Bob's inner pools of cud.

How fine it would be one day

to hear Bob's story from Bob.


hans ostrom 2022

Saturday, June 4, 2022

Abandoned Gold Mine

In the mine, looking at gray 

soil oozing water,

you feel the folly of digging

a hole in a mountain and hoping

wooden beams and air will hold up

all the rock above you. Mining

is faith. You look at rusted


iron tracks and the one tiny-

wheeled ore car no one stole yet.

This is a burrow where the Gold Rush

came to die. Yet even you,

fever -free, son and grandson

of gold miners, look at quartz

around your feet and want

to see deep yellow flecks,

desperately want gold to be.


Building, blasting, mucking,

loading, pushing, lifting. Sucking

rock dust in, coughing it out.

Stripping at end of day to show

you didn't steal high-grade ore.

Cuts, contusions. That's the search,

the work. The mine was not theirs.


Decades later, you stand in the cool

tomb and feel the drive that drove

them all here to lay down tracks

to trek into a mountain's dream.


hans ostrom 2022

Sunday, May 29, 2022

Simple Wishes

I wish you warm 
copper dreams. I
wish you iron strength
on hardest days. May
ways you move

through life fit
often with the world.
Let mild rainstorms
roll perfumed breezes
toward your nostrils.

Let tastes of food
on hungry days bless
you with enough; and
send you satisfied
to a clean bed 

in a quiet place. And
may you hear songs
that take you by the hand
and walk you softly over
sweet grass to sleep 

and warm copper dreams. 


hans ostrom 2022

8 Billion Hearts

 At this instant 8

billion hearts pump

fuel to burn for birth,

work, war, talk, love,

joy, grief, hope... and


to keep greed, fear,

faith, and learning alive.

Each heart the same:

muscles, valves,

arteries. Electric


currents. But invented

differences reign,

brainlessly, with terror,

as if each heart were

not of similar design.


It's always a good

time to change, none

better than now. How?

Keep asking. Think of

8 billion hearts, their

syncopated beats.


hans ostrom 2022

Saturday, May 14, 2022

Lie to Me, Sun

If we could really see sunlight, we'd see
it as a driven mist of grains--photons so finely
made they move through windows, skin, and eyes
and leaves of trees and plants, which turn them into
life. The photons run the planet while we proceed
with wrecking things, of course. Illusions of mere light,

its nuts and bolts invisible, are fine by me,
especially now, as May behaves like early March,
dark gray and wet and cold. The winter blues 
still thump like Ahab's wood on my soul's deck.
Sure, lie to me, Old Sun, with visible/invisible
rays of light. Light up things and me with little

quantum particles. Hell yeah. As long as you
come in and stay awhile, and save us once again,
and start the growing season and maybe kindle hope. 


Friday, May 13, 2022

The Bay of Today

In a gray bay, white sailboats
curve across what's for their
sailors now and for us past. 

Our Bay of Today is another
matter; it's blue, chipped
by whitecaps. In what seems

to be a sea of quantum
probability, no thing exists,
and all things just keep

happening. The universe
becomes an eventful
occurrence. Well,

everybody's got their
own lifeboat floating
in what seems like

the moment, with 
its carrots, rocks, and sky
and ways of wondering why. 


hans ostrom 2022

In Feral Times

In feral times, brains tear
into propaganda in rabid
frenzy. Brains fill with rage,
which displaces sense
and empathy. Minds want
to hunt mythic stock prey--
who turn out to be people
just like them. Afterwards. 

In feral times, mirages
cloud minds, blind them 
to facts and finding ways. 
Mobs over-run common 
ground because cults
are total. The wicked

trick the deranged to gain
so little--like pickled
ideology or weary greed.

In feral times, reasoners
don't know what to do.
They wonder if they 
should seek a better place
to live. They tend to stay
to fulfill duties. Once

the Grand Wreckers rise 
to unbound power,
a cycle ensues. It
may end in a shabby
bunker but too late. 
The reasoners know
because they've read
and know what to read. 





hans ostrom 2022