235. Dear My Friend Jerry

Dear my friend Jerry, I fear, I fear I'm nothing now tho writing you (tho writing thou, a joke 4 you), for I read in red headlines at market how celebrickies (celebrities) with more to/two/too live 4 than I (for example) are found dead adjacent to vodka and pills or with heroin needle in arm or ass, yet here, hear I, here me live on in my smallness like our (the hour come round at last) mutual friend Gregor Mendel, x-cept in my case, I should say, today they at my work-job fired me 4 nothing x-cept that they could. Jerry my dear friend I know you know I was, I should say am, good at my work-job, small thought it was. Yes, 4 twenty-5 years I came to work they said sit down I said no I know you're firing me, and I don't want to sit after you say "Sit!" Jerry, they said, let me tell you they said, Hand over your keys and two men from Security walked me away. I said What about my personal items? They said they will send them. 25 years no reason, warning, cause. Just b-cause. No, my friend Jerry, not heartless but a heart filled with poison. A hearty, hardy firing, 'twas. A biz-noose dying a machine-death, place of my former work-job, dear Jerry, and me no money now x-cept the sum of the some I have saved. I saved it but will it save me? Not, I think not, given what we know about the facts. Thank you, dear Jerry, for reading, for having read, and for having red wine. Jerry, let us have coffee. Stand by. Your friend, Al, which is short for . . . . [[[hans ostrom 2014]]]

234. Let Me Build You a Patio

Let me build you a patio, as we call it in our patois. A lump of dirt will do to start. After I have leveled with you, I will arrange stone and mortar.  I will perspire, grunt, and imagine.

Shards of blue and red ceramic plates and cups, green glazed pieces of pottery, the occasional brick. These I shall include. I am no patio purist, slavish about slate.

It's a jazz patio. Up for that? Riffs and notes. It will drain in the right direction, don't worry.

Yes, it will be lumpy and curious, stout and eager.

My patios never speak. They listen.

People will envy the fact that the patio is solely yours, inimitable,  and not at all like that other patio and that other one and all the sameness-patios. I assert this.

The patio will be as useful as other patios. It will be maddeningly whimsical. It will be this, and it will be that, and most of all, it will be done, on Earth and not in heaven.

This is the patio-package I present to you.


2014 hans ostrom

233. The Game in the Village

In the village, the game has been played for generations. The stated purpose of the game is to discover the rules of the game.

Each generation, all players, and all moves within the game support this purpose. As rules are discovered or invented and thence incorporated officially into the game, players adhere to the rules as they play. But none of the rules or the play may inhibit the discovery or creation of new rules.

Basic particulars of the game include the following: As few as two as and many as seventeen players may play the game. Each player gets a small stick, a red wrist-band, a geometric token, ten words, and twenty two-digit numbers.

Play begins when one player grasps his or her tongue and tries to say one of the ten words. Play continues.

Eventually one player wins--but when, and how, and why? Such larger questions, if one may call them that, live at the heart of the game in the village.


hans ostrom 2014

232. When Your Lover Is Sad

When your lover is sad,
offer her or him
a glass of fresh water.
Invite the lover
to take a bath
while you cook something
welcome. Play
some music the lover
likes. Make sure
there are fresh linens
on the bed for when
the lover wants to sleep
or re-explore the contours
of passion. --Oh, and every
lover of every gender
likes flowers. Common
sweet-pea blossoms
will work. Or almost
any wildflower. Or of course
just one red, fragrant rose.
And wash the lover's clothes.


Hans Ostrom 2014

231. Clearing the Mind

The decidedly deciduous phase of a mind's elaboration occurs when a startling multitude of platitudes, lessons, opinions, rules, gestures, and common wisdom falls fast and splendidly, disintegrates, and disappears. On a clean Winter street, you may stand wondering why you carried all that bright rot in your mind for so long. And you may see the bizarre neighbor in his red wool cap; he will be waving at you, the air will be cold, and he will shout, "The time has come!"

230. Arguing About a Couch

As the two people argued warmly about whether to purchase a red sofa they had been examining in a store, the terrestrial sphere on which they stood whirled in infinite space. Such energy the two directed toward their contest of wills concerning red furniture, a decorative and functional mass! Where, oh tell me where will the red couch be in a thousand years? (In ten?)

229. Pecking Disorder

The smallest chicken listened
again to the rooster, spikes
on his ankles, red gristle
below the throat. Again

the rooster seemed to be
throating things like
I'm a dictator, I'm boss,
a movie star am I, a
celebrity, a CEO, a pastor
of a mega-church, a
full professor, a senior
partner, a Wall Street
broker, a stand-up joker!

The rooster's crew then
came over to pick at
the smallest chicken,
who took it, and who

after they finished,
amused itself by picking
at the chicken-wire,

until, one night, a
hole appeared and a coyote
entered.  In the morning,
the smallest and only
remaining chicken
picked its steps through
what bones were left
and feathers and blood,
gristle and spikes and
beaks. It walked through

the hole, proclaiming nothing,
and was picked up by
the soft hands of a god
from that place the smallest
chicken had always thought
to be a bigger chicken-house. 


hans ostrom 2014

228. Love-Equation

Let a big red L stand for Love, a set of arbitrary elements. Multiply (L) by p, where p is equal to or greater than 2 (persons), and the result is equal to or greater than complicated.

227. My Love Is Like a Red, Red Something

Oh, my love is like a red, red onion: it's purple, not red. My love is like a red, red dog without a collar, sniffing its way down an alley, smelling for some leavings, lifting a leg to mark what's verticle. My love is like a red, red car--rusted out, sitting on flat tires in blond weeds and armored thistles. My love is like a red, red stone in a load of blue river-rock: out of place. My love is like a red, red scarf worn by Robert Burns on a night of drinking: likely to get left behind.

226. Mixed Mist Emotions

The woman with the red handbag said to her friend, "I like the mist. I love the mist. Except when it--. I have mixed emotions about the mist." In there in the mist, emotions mix. Which ones? Fear, nostalgia, depression, desire, elation, maybe even infatuation? Infatuation, yes. For out of the mist might walk a face, a body, pinning the woman's desire to an image, one person's unwitting self-advertisement. Mist is water. Add emotions. Stir. Then: what? hans ostrom 2013

225. Fawning

Reclusive genius Annie Gerkinmew agreed to a rare interview. She spoke to worshiper and journalist Erich Nodmore at her reclusive-genius apartment in the Soho District at the center of the universe. The apartment foregrounds tones of rust and cinnamon, as well as contours of ineffable brilliance. Ol' Annie allowed as how she was indeed a genius, reclusive, special, diffident, ineffable, rare, and open to have her photo taken--by a highly paid pro, black-and-white, lighting to be directed by her. Annie spoke at some length about the burdens of genius and the rigors of being represented by the most powerful literary agents, managers, and lawyers. She alluded to the fact that no one has seen the trouble she has seen. She is considering crossing Jordan River. She identifies with Black people. The interview provides a fascinating glimpse into the manufacture and maintenance of literary celebrity, which is not so different from plastic cups or car-bumpers. One urges one to read the interview. Listen to me: Annie Gerkinmew is an important writer. She has won prizes. Her back-cover blurbs are written by angels and sub-contracted to cherubs. Annie Gerkinmew is an essential voice in our world. Her prose is kind of ineffable. Therefore, shut up! Be respectful! She is remote and talented. She is a rare genius, and she went out of her fucking way to grant an interview. Okay?

224. Happeningness

The happeningness of reality never pauses. No wonder wonder tires us. And no surprise we like our invented constants: coffee or tea; known routes; the expected deployment of red in certain aspects of couture and home-decoration; music imprinted on us early; and now visits to the same illusory places on something we happen to call the Web. The happeningness of the Web mimics that of parental reality. Electrons constantly lay new eggs, which constantly hatch. What is or seems to be (now there's no difference) quickly joins a rank and a prioritized state of being, a stasis with a status; or not. One and Zero, baby, and infinite combinations thereof. It was and is a shotgun-wedding of the simplest and the most complex, and the offspring are the feudal overlords of us all. hans ostrom 2013

223. The Sheriff Has Absconded

You touch the moon on water, a century collapses into a train & the engine's light shines on tracks, which ladder up from night into a blue dawn buttered. And now unfixed factories march across a plain to kidnap fugitive workers. You're at red rim-rock's edge, watching all of this--you, the emperor of images, brewer of creosote beer, melter of topaz, escaped sheriff. hans ostrom 2013

222. Red Bandana

Investment Masters continue to control the scroll of insidious influence. Let's shake on it. The Stalk Market rallied today on news of better-than-expected burnings reports. If you're trying to make sense of it all, you're a sucker. If you're not trying to make sense out of it all, you're a sucker. Trying to alter the course of institutions is like dancing with an avalanche. On this day then I take my red-bandana-handkerchief out of my bluejeans pocket, and I wipe the perspiration from my brow. On this day then such a gesture seems like a signal of faith. Not far off, on grass, one crow attacks another but not seriously enough to injure. The attacker walks off. The attacked continue to recline and grooms himself. I laugh. I have to.

221. Istanbul

In that city, small shops formed hives of work and talk and tradition. Birds whirled, wheeled in flight, dove above dusty trees at dusk. Voices called, young and old. There was the voice of the boy in the alley calling for his friend, "Ahhhhh-maaaad!" There were the voices of the calls to prayer. That city was a place of tough vitality. Ferocity and beauty shone in dark eyes. Oh, yes, we recalled that James Baldwin loved it here. There was a seduction of breezes after the sun went down. In that city, acres of red-tiled roof-tops accepted light and heat, and people there accepted their lives, their condition-- for the time being. Hans Ostrom 2013

220. Tourist Brochure

Known for its lush valleys and catastrophic mountains, this island nation will dance a tango with a porcine dictator at the drop of a bomb. This island nation is a destination-blemish attached to a tectonic plate. Tourists and spies invent native dances that kick up dust, which makes the natives sneeze. The spirit of this vile vacation is perhaps captured best in the fable of the red beetle, a tale no one, alas, can recall, at all, anymore.

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