219. Red Skeleton of the Abstruse

Imagine subway, escalator, roller coaster, U-Bahn, chain of command, Metro, yo, and so on, except the body in question is its own conveyance and so you flow through every urban tunnel, every scene and tube and dream. Scream. And so you go and do and go and flow up, down, around every renewal and neighborhood until you moan and drone and panic and wish and beg and plead to get off, to stop, to stop this motherfucking madness which includes hatred of the poor, denial of the truth, extermination of the Other. It may be so. I do not know. The red skeleton of the abstruse invades. Existence at its best is nightmare, and NASA is searching for another Earth: that is moderately humorous.

218. Is The Realistic Novel Dead?

"They say they realistic novel is, at long last, dead," said Grone. He was among the passengers committed to a transcontinental pod-train that soared, four inches above its tracks, across the parched mid-section of the United States. The train was silver, with a red streak, like a trout. "Who is 'they,'?" asked Jenny Fraska of Grone. She didn't care to know, but she cared enough to converse. "Critics," said Grone, with no enthusiasm but as if it were a good answer. He and Fraska didn't know each other. Their bodies were traveling at 100 miles per hour, at least. Jenny Fraska shrugged. "Someone once told me," she said, "that in the long run, not a single critic ever mattered." "I'm a critic," said Grone, "of sorts. And I concur. May I--?" "--No," she said. "You may not." "But you don't know--" "--I k now," she said. "You were going to take the conversation to some kind of second stage." "Jesus," Grone said, almost out loud but to himself, "I want to smell and lick and kiss you." "I know what you're thinking," said Jenny. "So do I," said Grone. "I can pay." Jenny Fraska laughed. "This is precisely why critics have dismissed the realistic novel, and why they are wrong," she said. "What do you mean?" Grone asked. "I mean that humans are determined to be realistic, and no one especially wants to read about it." "May I please sniff your neck?" asked Grone. "Never!" said Jenny Fraska. Grone smiled. For he recognized "Never!" as an example of a type of ambiguity.

217. Orpheus on a Road in Colorado

Listen to the summer road,

heat still in the dust and stones

at dusk. In a meadow

below the road, the carnies

have pitched their tents.

The heat has withered their canvas.

The women lift their hair

off of their necks in the heat

down in the blond meadow

tinged with pink now from the red

clouds in the West. Owls

tuck themselves back in the woods

where darkness is already

deeper than the dusk. Cicadas sing.

Trout waggle sluggishly

in the slow, warm current.

Gnats boil. You stare down

at your feet in the powdery dust.

The carnies will say they heard you sing,

but as the sound comes out of your mouth,

it seems only necessary, like breath exhaled,

not song. The deer back in the stand of oaks

stop; their legs become brown sticks.

To them the sound is necessary, too.

They cannot question it,

no more than fish can question river.

Only the carnies will wonder;

only they will testify.

It's almost dark now as the sheriff's car

comes rumbling toward you, white dust

pouring out of the chassis like factory smoke.

You tell him you were only talking

to the woods at dusk, and to the inhabitants

of the woods, talking of the underground river,

cool and actual in the bedrock below the road,

below all this heat and dust and weary brush.

He accuses you of singing, though.

You glance down at the lanterns

in the carnival's camp and allow that,

yes, it could be singing, what you do.

He says you can go, inasmuch as there's no law

against singing on a country road in Colorado.

He walks down to the meadow

to mumble with the strangers.

Darkness now. The animals

have retreated further. Farther on,

you find a place to sleep.

It's not a song, but in your dreams,

you know you hear the river underground.

Hans Ostrom 2013

216. The Season of Mercy

It is the month of desire.

I wake up and find you

and hold one of those unoriginal thoughts

lovers are bound to hold:

we could be any two living here at any time.

Look at the red morning clouds

and the blue coastal hills that absorb

the salt of those acquisitive waves.

We yearn for the whole love;

we wait for it to spring to life

like the blessed perfect leaf of a beautiful plant.

Do we seek our souls through love,

the perfect shape of us that lives

in these rough shapes?

And thereby do we implicitly prove the Soul

through dissatisfaction

and love's displacements?

Proof of the world fills the morning glass:

window, mirror, bowl, and spectacle.

Proof of our dying, well, it comes and goes:

each breath, each push

of blood from heart to palm.

This holding at dawn

wants more than versions of the world

            in the morning glass.

It seems to want a twenty-fifth hour,

an eighth day, one further season:

the season of mercy

            when orange groves fill our every window

and love for the first time

holds us as we have held each other.

Hans Ostrom 2013

215. Details of the Break-Up

O my generalissima, your voice
sounded like a lactating chainsaw
as you commanded me out of your life.

I retaliated by not renewing my
subscription to Piquant Living
magazine. Also, I swallowed

the key to your place and put on
red slippers.  On the street,
I looked up to see my things

falling. They piled up in drifts
of shame. The pleather underwear
had been a gift from you.

People gathered and laughed.
I taught them a folk-dance.
And now it is later,

and I work at a drive-thru
mortuary and am studying
to become a fish-whisperer.


Hans Ostrom, 2012

214. Certain Assemblages

Certain assemblages of words are deemed, in certain assemblages of words, "genius" or "enduring" by critics.  And so assemblages of people think they should read these "enduring" assemblages of words so as to read what is read or red or blue or acceptable or green or what-one-is-supposed-to-know, after all.

The coagulation of assemblages is so petty, corrupt, and formidable that you just have to ignore and write or read or both or neither, and whoever heard of a reading list saving the world?  After all.

213. Trees and Not-Trees

There are trees, and there are not-trees.

A painting or a photograph of trees
is not-trees.  So are salt-flats not-trees.

The distinction is crucial.

Ask the jay or the cardinal
that climbs a tree. Ask
the squirrel.  Not literally,
but ask. Advise the ground,
which is mottled,
not cast in full sunlight.

At a saloon, someone struck
a philosopher in the face.
Not-hard. But nonetheless.

The philosopher had said
there are no trees, only
ideas of trees, and he
happened to have stopped
in timber country. Also,
he hadn't bought a round
of drinks, which are not-trees
but which nonetheless
matter to people.

212. Cocktail Bar Monologue

No, he was my ex-husband, not my father-in-law. I called him, it was my birthday, and he didn't sound right. So I went over there. He strangled me in the bed. He didn't choke me out. I woke up, and he said, "What are you doing?"  I said, "I'm going to the bathroom."

So I got up, and I went to his daughter's room, she wasn't there, and I covered myself with her red bed-spread and her stuffed animals and stuff, and I heard him out there, saying, "Where am I?!" And he was like destroying shit and he put a fist through a wall.

And a neighbor came over, and I stayed there the whole night.  I was in shock, so I couldn't call the police until the next day.  He got like third degree assault, and he spent time in jail, but he makes a hundred and fifty grand a year so he got out on bail.

Anyway, he gets to see our son, he's four, every other week. I have full custody.

I wouldn't be able to get health-care for my son except that I'm going to school, and Obamacare you know pays for that. I want to open a doggie-daycare center. My son's name is Lucas. He's four. Here, look at this happy face he drew, it's on my iPhone.

I live with my mother now. My dad died, so I moved in with her. I sold all his stuff in a garage sale. I made three thousand bucks. He was an electrician for thirty years, and if he didn't have a tool, he'd buy two of them.

You see Roger down at the end of the bar? He wanted to sell his Ford 500, so I put it on Craig's List. .  Then some guy called him and said Hey, I can advertise that, special.  So the guy took Roger for $500. And the thing sold on Craig's List the next day.  I think Roger was just drunk.

I'm impressed. Most people don't  know how to spell "Erin."  They spell it like the Bible, "Aaron," but I tell them, Hey, I have different parts.

My friend is in a Rolling Stones tribute band, and he's playing tonight, but I don't know where. He's supposed to text me.