Great Horned Owls Perch Together and Have a Conversation 01.07.2024 (exp...

Alpine Lake

Sometimes the lake takes sunlight,

turns it into a deep blue

that might make you leave your mouth

open slightly like a child

just awake from a nap.

On some leaden summer days,

the lake quits moving, stays

so still it turns frog green.

Sluggish fish nap. Anglers

take their tackle-boxes home.

Giant bugs come and dance

on the water. At night?

At night the lake puts its colors

in an old drawer. It hums tunes

and talks to raccoons and owls

and hiding water fowls.

In Winter the lake turns white

with ice and snow--becomes

stationery from 1925 on which

you scribble pleas to Spring. 

Hans Ostrom 2024

Doctor My Eyes | Jackson Browne | Song Around The World | Playing For Ch...

You Hold the Door

You sometimes think, What

does any of this have to do with me?
Everything, of course. You and the
8 billion breathe the same air,
recycled from the air early Africans
breathed before the land
got named Africa. The children

bombs, bullets, and missiles kill
for not one single good goddamned reason
raise your ire, eve if you ire's impotent.

The woman earning her wage
at the cafe knows your name,
and you know hers, and you two
sometimes speak of San Francisco.

At any moment, someone you have
never met may need your help,
and you theirs. Still, a person

knows that others plan the future--
often by refusing to plan, often
with sinister, even evil, habits in play.
No way the future belongs to you.
You ask no one, To whom does it

belong?" You take a last gulp
of coffee bean syrup and watch
the woman pull the wool hat
over her ears and go outside
to smoke a cigarette, check
her phone, and be alone. On
the way out, you hold a door
for a stranger. He says, "Thanks,'
and you say, "You're welcome."

Hans Ostrom 2024

Adjacent in Their Lives

She's pleased to think about the birds

on Earth, in canopies and copsds,

on sidewalks and stone statues, back

yards, blue bluffs. Among the refugees

or crapping on the autos of the ultra-rich.

What if, she thinks, someone could show

some images of Earth and as night comes
around, each bird were represented
by one lit-up pixel--so many birds, so
many lights, they would obscure
the night with light. That's what they do

for her--the common birds she sees
around. They shine a light of life
on her when she's brought low
by grayness sometimes in her soul.
Oh, crows and juncos, hawks or jays,
the pigeons in a city, owls out in
the woods. She loves the way they live,

so pointedly, with such sharpness and
no little bit of courage. They sing and caw,
trill and hoot, shriek and burble--hard
to feel much bitterness when she
sees birds--or even thinks of them,
the many, the few, in trees, on dew.
They're strangers and companions,
she and the birds, adjacent in their lives.

Hans Ostrom 2024

"Photo Album," by Roger Illsley

"Say Maybe, Say Yes," by Roger Illsley

Overheard in an Airport Security Line

 "And I'm, like, look! Oh, gross!"

                    *
"Believe it. Reincarnation is real."
                    *
"Her boss says she needs to learn
more aout what she's selling so she
can sell more of what she's trying
to sell."
                  *
"When we get to Tijuana, we should
rent a Mazerati."
                  *
"I'm not sure why I travel anymore."

Hans Ostrom 2024

Do all men do this | mash report#4 | Sip Comedy

Sanjeev Bhaskar reads Spike Milligan's hilarious letter home during WWII

Impromptu - Cynthia Erivo sings Aretha Franklin on Graham Norton Show.

Benedict Cumberbatch reads a letter from Kurt Vonnegut

RARE Footage of GOP Candidate INSTANTLY DESTROYS Her Entire Defense