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.

211. Erik the Red and Poetry

You know what
Erik the Red said
about poetry, don't you?


Nor do I. Maybe
it was something like
"Just get the fucking poem
written, okay?"


Leave the theory
to physicists and detectives 
in crime novels. A poem
is a made thing--spoken,
written, or both. Poet,


make it easy on yourself:
make that poem. Poet,
make that poem.

--Hans Ostrom 2012

210. Let Them Have It

Sometimes the shuffling of playing cards sounds like the tearing of lettuce, my friend.

And sometimes the tearing of lettuce sounds like the crunch of snow underfoot, as you walk, fuzzy from drinking all night, on a ghostly white winter road.

And sometimes the weird smoke and light of a forest fire reddens the moon, making it look like a single blood-shot eye, the eye of a sad jeweler examining a ruined emerald.

And often people ask "Why?" when they know the answer, or when they know the one asked can't possibly know the answer.

And sometimes you just want to lie down, don't you?, in a room and have done with it, have done with it all, the infinite mess of the here and the now.

"Let them have it, let them have the mess," you may say to yourself, my friend. "I am going to rest here alone."

209. A Simple Man

"I'm a simple man," proclaimed Hiram, not just to no one in particular, but to no one. He was alone in an alley. Urinating, as it happens. And it happens. Finishing, he said, "Thanks for the warm night, and for the laughs"--again to no one.

Then he affirmed his simplicity. "I like," he said, "to eat, sleep, bathe, piss, shit, laugh, read, fuck, write, cook, and dance.  Mine is largely a monosyllabic life."  He added, "I like to feel safe, even if it's an illusion. I like to work but mostly because of the money. And I like to surprise people with kindness."

No one responded.  It was an alley-thing. "That's about it," Hiram said. At the far end of the alley, a red neon light blinked on, blinked off, on, off.

208. Financial Planning

I sought counsel from a financial adviser for a time, but then his business went in the red and failed.

Meanwhile, I just keep going to work. My first paying job was as a weed-cutter. That was 43 years ago: holy shit.

Sometimes I tell people that I chose not to be rich.  Sometimes they laugh.

Meanwhile, I just keep going to work. I see now that's the financial plan I've always had.

When it comes to accounting, I like the fact that red is bad and black is good.  Black has to be bad so often in our culture.  It must be a relief to black to be good in this case.  Thinking thoughts like this, I assume, has helped me maintain my goal of not becoming rich.

207. Bluesy: Baby, Open Your Legs

Baby, open up your legs and let me lick your pussy. Baby, open  your legs, please--let me eat your pussy. I'll go all the way down and up and around. Baby, open your legs and let me lick your pussy.

Well, you have a red rose tattooed on your hip. Yeah, you got a red and blue rose right there on your hip. I have a tongue that's hiding behind my lips, so let me lick your pussy, please open up.

Baby, scream and holler if you've a mind to. Scream and holler when the feeling's right. Baby, holler and scream if the feeling's right. Moan and giggle when I get it right.  Smile and laugh in the night.  Baby, open your legs and let me lick your pussy.

206. Bee Balm and Women

Women smell just enough differently and think just enough differently and walk, look, dress, eat, respond, laugh just enough differently from men to fascinate me permanently and as the red bee-balm blossom attracts honey-and-bumble bees, my generalized interest is drawn to women, although I require no commerce, per se; let us say I am not after nectar; let us say the permanent instinctual intrigue is a reward unto itself. Let us say that.

205. No, I Don't

No, I don't want to register for the rewards program or the summer contest.

I don't want to hurry down for the red-label sale, or to come down there at all.

I don't want to sign up for a card that is alleged to give me cash back on my purchases, and I don't want to be a valued customer because I don't think that phrase means what you want me to believe it means.

I just want to work and to get enough food and rest and otherwise be left alone.  I don't want to be harried by the places where I get things when I need to get the things.

204. Ruby

Ruby was the wife. She'd grown up in Alabama, and her body had conveyed her through life until she had married Dan, a wealthy, large, fidgety man who had made a fortune and a half selling steel-framed windows in the era between wood and aluminum.

Ruby was what was known then as a party gal. She wore red lipstick and dresses that displayed a significant cleavage, which in turn alluded to large breasts and expansive aureoles. She liked men as much as men liked her.

There was nothing coy abut Ruby. At an outdoor party once, in California, she held and scratched the scrotum of a hound. Her husband Dan tried to laugh off the scene, the action taken by Ruby.  The women were repulsed and astonished, the men merely astonished.

Ruby and Dan used to travel to what they called "the Orient." They journeyed by freighter. No one knew exactly why. Because Dan was a rich miser? Because they were eccentric? Or because, on a freighter, there were fewer men for Ruby to astonish?

They led a boozy, stormy life, Ruby and Dan. Their various houses were decorated heavily, like the sets of the Perry Mason TV show. Wood, leather, slabs of slate, big paintings of horses, and of dogs.  Steel-framed windows.

As a child I visited one of their homes. It smelled of leather and wood, whiskey and roast beef.  Dan always wore some kind of tweed jacket.  And he made a monkey-face at children, like me, who didn't recognize it as a monkey face but as a repulsive grimace an adult male was making.

Ruby called all children "Doll." She didn't make monkey faces.  Her breasts were large. Her lips were red. She smoked cigarettes, she drank vodka, she laughed, and she gave off warmth.

Eventually Ruby left Dan. She died on Skid Row in San Francisco. By then Dan had remarried a woman who was manageable and who pretended to have a large vocabulary.

There aren't too many peopole left who remember the story about Ruby's scratching a dog's balls at a party. The vivid, the vulgar, the vibrant--yes, they go to dust like all of us, as does all memories every memory of them.

203. Sad Erotica

In the genre of sad erotica, people are tired and smell bad. They feel too fat or too thin, too old or too young or too middling.  They touch their bodies like they handle a heap of laundry.

They're hungry but too tired from work to cook, and no one's there to cook for them.  Oh, a bath would feel great but only after a drink or some weed and some food.  Hot food.

They fall asleep in front of a screen and wake up bewildered and vacant. They drag themselves to the shower, and as the hot water turns some body parts red, they think about sex, the relief it sometimes brings, the oblivion of lust, the good feeling of being something or someone someone wants to touch. 

In the genre of sad erotica, people get out of the shower and dry themselves off and put on cotton, linen, or wool. They walk slowly to bed and fall in the bed, exhaling like a beast.  They go to sleep, where dreams of romance, erotic mystery, and sex will, they vaguely hope, await them.

hans ostrom 2018

202. Sun and Sex In Mainz

I remember the sun rising over buildings at the university in Mainz.

I remember a desperate needing of sex in Winter in Mainz. After walking against icy wind, after drinking wine or beer or brandy, after music and debate and delusion, god how we craved the deep bodily drama of sex on cheap sheets next to a table loaded with books from the library.

Sunshine made the broad cobblestone-walkway blaze. I let the rock-reflected light cook my eyeballs and sear my thoughts, which craved the recall of going down on brown women in California seasons earlier.

The German Winter had been especially cold and heavy. I'd read Goethe, Mailer, Vidal, Baldwin, Colette--truly devouring books from the library we had to re-organize when we weren't teaching students who rightly loathed college.

German punks with black-dyed Mohawks as dense as zebra manes gathered on street-corners.  I remember the women didn't look happy: another male jeremiad.

I remember a voluptuous woman sucking my cock, riding my face, and wanting it hard and steady, and why wouldn't she?

I remember the sun rising over buildings at the university in Mainz. The German Winter had been especially cold and hard. The steps across the smoldering cobblestones were my first strides away from it.

201. Sex at the St. Francis That Time

He wonders if she remembers the time they were in San Francisco and they got a room they couldn't afford at the St. Francis Hotel and he went down on her and she came as she looked through the window at the Bay Bridge, sunlight turning a rust color as it hit the cables and under-girding.

He wonders if he should ask her if she remembers, for he sees himself going down on her, his back to the Bay Bridge, her legs open, eyes closed, eyes open.

He wonders if St. Francis would see the sunlight as sin-light, would have approved or not of intimacy and sex in the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco.  St. Francis would have approved he decides, deciding to decide in a self-serving way.  He wonders still, however, if she remembers the time they . . .

200. Mister Lincoln Rose

A wee fist comes out
of a Mister Lincoln rose,
taps your nose.

You hear a voice, which purrs,
slurs like a kind, formidable,
boozy perfumed aunt: "This,
kiddo, is what a rose
is supposed to smell like. Not
like the nothing-blooms in
the goddamned florist's deep-freeze."


Copyright 2012 Hans Ostrom

199. We Use Deep Blue . . .

We use deep blue to tell a desert canyon's depth at twilight. --Use warm red to remark upon a last sliver of dusk visible through haze, clouds, or diluted fog. --Use green to see where refugee groups of trees have survived that onslaught of our colorless phenomenon: development. --Use yellow so often for caution that now we see daffodils as warning: Here comes another Spring, which we'll fill with our history.

198. Of Buzzwad Carsatchel

Buzzwad Carsatchel, CEO of Schmoozel Embroglios, LLC, is golfing with enormous marketers and marketeers who sweat scotch whiskey.

He hates them.

He hates golf.

He pulls out an enormous pistol and shoots it at turtles in a water-trap, also known as a pond.  He misses.  The turtles slip into the water.

The marketers and marketeers laugh.  "It's not funny!" he cries.

He throws the gun into the water. His wealth and all he traded for it have tracked him all the way to this humid, hissing golf course.  The world goes red, tilts.  Buzzwad 'Buzz' Carsatchel is experience a "heart event."

He lies down on the hot green grass.  It sweats. He sweats.  The marketers and marketeers madly phone.  They drip scotch-whiskey sweat on Buzzwad Carsatchel's ashen face.

Buzz remembers something about a lecture on the topic of absurdity, a lecture by a philosophy professor in his second year of college.

Buzzwad Carsatchel believes he hears the sirens he believes will save him.

197. Fate's Like That

I was walking down a country road. Dry yellow grass hissed on both sides of that road.  Heat gave the scene of trees and farms a vibrating cinnamon hue.

--Came upon a fellow playing blues harmonica on his porch, a glass of lemonade at his feet, red threads apparent in his overalls.

"Sir, have you seen my fate?" I asked.

He paused his playing, wiped his mouth with a flannel sleeve.  Men who wear flannel in the heat are to be respected, I have learned.

"It's right behind you," he said. I turned and look. Nothing.

"Oh! It moved," he said. "It's up ahead."

I looked up ahead. Nothing.

"Fate's like that," the man said. "Always slipping past you.  His brown eyes were red-rimmed.  "You thirsty?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," I said.

"Well, then, it seems your fate, which is here, is to drink lemonade on this porch with me. Come up."

"Thank you, sir," I said. Fate's like that.

196. Those Bluejean Shorts

Those bluejean shorts, cut to the crotch, you wore that summer: I've sent the memory of them to my Hall of Recall Fame. There's going to be an induction ceremony, where I will speak about your brown legs, the red thread in the bluejean shorts, the shadow in your belly's button, what lay north of that, what lay south, what happened to those back pockets when your buttocks filled them, how we lay in all directions as the swamp-cooler rumbled and as little black waves of spinning vinyl delivered tunes we thought might cool our heat eventually.

It'll be a short speech at the induction ceremony.  But O my darling, the memory of you, of us, of heat, of those bluejean shorts you cut to the crotch, how "crotch" was never a crude word between us, how I--this is not too strong--worshiped your brown legs and your crotch when you took off the shorts and the bright, white panties.  O my darling, O.

195. R&B (Sex Is Clumsy)

Sex is clumsy. Everybody knows that,
especially the ones who portray it
otherwise: Hollywood, Harlequin,
Playboy . . . It's an awkward comedy,
part of its charm. We can overcome

the clumsiness--part of its grace.
Hey, look, it's a list of kisses, strokes,
talk, tastings, fittings of bodies, of
minds, of pleasures. Such elements
assemble. They're the improv troupe
of sex. And it's all right, it's good,
even very good. Great?


Well, sex is probably better
when it's good, not great.
Anyway, for now, let's talk
of something else (or not talk)
and sip red wine, maybe smoke
some weed, and listen to R&B.

Copyright 2012

194. Old Kisser of Women's Toes

There is an old, lascivious man in our village who sits on sidewalks and beside park-paths in the sunshine. Some of the young (and not so young) women know all about him, and they come up to him and stand.  He rouses himself from lethargy, gets on his knees, and kisses their toes protruding from sandals.  Some women take their shoes off for this service.

Often the women visit him in pairs or trios, and after he kisses their toes, they giggle and scamper away.  If they try to give him money, he refuses.  More than once he has said, "I'm neither a prostitute nor a destitute man. This is a hobby, and my gift to you. And to me."  He's oddly formal, this old man. But this doesn't keep him from savoring details, such as the color of paint on toes, a tender hammer-toe, a wee tattoo, the angle of the big toe, and so on.

At twilight the man often lies on a bench and sleeps deeply like a beast. I know because I am he.  No doubt this hobby of mine disgusts you. Technically, it's not a fetish, as I don't get aroused.  Difficult as it may be to believe this, I see this activity as a community service and a whimsy of my twilit years.

Last night as I was still dozing, one of the women left a red rose on my chest as I slept.

Later her husband--who had been spying on her--came and threatened to beat me up. He was at least 30 years my junior and in excellent shape.

I told him to go home and kiss his wife's body, starting with her brown toes, which, I said, had that lovely ruby paint on them today.  Hers are sweet toes, yes, coated with the finest summer dust, like pollen. By the way, for those of you obsessed with hygiene, I do rinse my mouth between toe-kissings. I hope this fact eases your concern.

Anyway, the husband's concern was not eased. That is, he knocked me down.  A few decades ago, I might have written, "He hit me in the kisser."  He left.  I lay and looked at the starts for a while, smelled the dew, listened to the complaints of a frog. I shivered, got up, found the red rose, and went home.

In the bath-water, I thought, not so much of the toes and kissing them, or even of the feet, but of the smiles of the women and their laughter.  Yes, I'm a lascivious old man, living in a village, looked at warily by police, boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, and partners.  I am a toe-kisser with a bruised face.

193. "I Never See the Red Rose Crown the Year," by John Masefield

A recording of the poem--and here is the . . .

LINK

192. Incredible Deals for a Limited Time Only

The advertisers proclaim that their offers are for a limited time only.

I want offers to last forever.

I want a red sofa to be sale even after the sun is spent and has become a red dwarf.

I want that weary red dwarf to have the chance to get a free large cola to sip as it eats a specially priced astral sandwich.

No one, brothers and sisters, should feel compelled to hurry down to take advantage of deals that are incredible. 

If a deal is not to be believed, then I say let it be a falsehood for all time.

191. Used Experiences

He needed cash, and he'd collected a lot of experiences in his life, so he took some of them to a Used Experience Store and tried to sell them.

The proprietor went through the experiences with the chill haste of the unsentimental expert. Then she said, "I'm afraid these aren't worth much. They're very common."

He didn't believe she was afraid.

He was tempted to protest but he knew doing so would only enhance humiliation.

She said, "I can't give you any cash, but I could give you a bit of credit to use as trade for other experiences in our store."

He said No Thanks and packed up his experiences in the brown cardboard box (with faded red lettering) of his memory and went home and felt bad about his life, parts of which had seemed vivid and rare to him before today. 

His place felt cold and drab.  He experienced that. He had no idea what experience he should have next.  He didn't really give a shit one way or the other now.

190. In the Dream About Partying With Women

In the dream about partying with women, Hiram is high on hashish.  He dances on a terrace with different women, various women, who are deftly desirous unlike men.

Just off the terrace are apartments with red rugs and many bedrooms. In the dream, the hash has occasionally but subtly disoriented Hiram.  He experiences slight hallucinations that alter flow of time. It is of no concern to him. Now different women take him to different rooms, where nudity and sex realize ambitions that involve Hiram, who is amenable.

In the dream's last scene, Hiram dreams he is sleeping. A woman he vaguely knows wakes him by lying atop him, naked, in the 69 position. He responds.  He laps the lovely wetness of her secret place.

189. Politics

Visible only for a while longer: a white, blue, red political candidate's sign, the candidate's name now inscrutable, lodged under a green, brown, yellow mass of blackberry vines, black brush, and ferns.

188. Meatloaf Writers Conference

At the Meatloaf Writers Conference, famous authors call each other by nicknames and speak in complacent ironies.

A homeless man sneaks into the conference to get some food. He has blood stains on his soggy garments.

Security escorts him out. He says, "There must be some mistake. I write! And where's the meat loaf?"

A famous editor floats by in khakis and top-siders.  He knows exactly how to behave.  He knows exactly what to say.  He says nothing about the small disturbance--Security with homeless man.  How very strange!

The famous editor encounters some very old dear friends indeed.  Longtime shadows groan because they know he is about to tell a story.  A practiced story--well balanced, appropriate, and well capitalized. Everything is as it has always been.

187. "Youth and Beauty," by Al Akhtal

"Youth and Beauty," by Al Akhtal, Arab poet, circa 650 A.D., from Mesopotamia/Syrian desert:


"Youth and Beauty"

186.That Town's Whistle

After the railroad company stopped sending trains through that town, the tracks got overwhelmed with red rust, gray grass, black brush, and green trees.

The townspeople eventually purchased a a big whistle--a horn, actually--that sounded like a train because almost everyone missed that sound.

Now people take turns.  One person goes down there one night a year and makes the horn make that sound. The horn is housed in a little shed, with ventilation to let the sound out.

Oh, now, if the train could only hear that sound, maybe the train would return.  But--no, it's been gone too long. It's too far away. In the town's imagination, the train passes through an eternal red-rock desert, hauling its steel boxes of freight to the lip of an abyss, unloading.

185. Migraine

After doing carpentry or carrying hod for 8 hours in summer Sierra heat, I'd sometimes know a migraine headache, which announced itself with a red curtain behind the eyes.

I'd go home and lie on the floor of a room built of concrete blocks: cool and dark: eyes ready to scream at any hint of light, head warning, "Don't move me."  Sometimes the headache subsided slowly, leaving a grudge behind, a thumping reminder. Sometimes I'd see an aura--white, tinges of yellow, faint threads of red....

...And the ache then would burst, eyes going grainy, sandy, and relaxed.  By then all the evening birds were singing, and swallows--black coats, rust-colored breasts--swooped gloriously over the pond as sunset came.

184. Sir Realism

Sir Realism, Knight of the Spherical Table, quested for pleasure, loved to watch orange of carrot vanish once it touched the elaborate mechanism of his horse's mouth, enjoyed kissing the red tongue of the queen. Self-knighted, he disliked juxtaposition of monarchy on the vibrant blur of masses.  One night a star morphed into a golden spoon and swooped to Earth.


Sir Realism, armored in found objects, jumped aboard the spoon, applauded frogs and their croaked chorus in luxuriant dew, and embarked--became a levitated image in someone's dream of a dream.

183. Academic Dinner

When he's invited to a formal academic dinner, he's asked (not in so many words) to play the role of guest and the role of performer and the role of audience for the Famous One, who is in town for one night to make what seems to some a lot of cash.

At the dinner, more than one person out of, say, 15, will fawn. More than once he's noticed the fawning and felt badly. He feels like a grubby hick and double-checks to insure his elbow is not on the table.  He keeps an unobtrusive eye on the Famous One.

Out of nervousness, he will inhale the food, which always has too much sauce on it. Usually he cracks one good joke, just sophisticated enough, and he asks one question the Famous One likes answering.  He earns his keep.

Outside, finally, he gulps cool air in darkness, loosens the noose of his red tie, gets the blazer off. He disappears from the group. He drives away like a burglar who got nothing but escaped arrest.

At home, more often than not he gets out of the car and stands behind a tree in the dark. There he opens his trousers and pisses.  As he pisses, he breathes easy.  He stares into rain or fog, or up at stars. He knows he will never master the art of being an academic.

182. The Mapes Hotel

And I recall the Mapes Hotel, Reno, first hotel in which I ever stayed, 9 years old? --The weird harmless hell of casino bells, fizzing lights, jangling coin-vomit, tobacco smoke, red carpet, red everything. That smell, how I loved it: notes of whiskey, sweat, grease, old carpet, trapped air. And Elevator: first one I'd ever ridden on; it was simple, absolute magic:

step in, be in (solemnity of those moments & engine whirring), then be elsewhere suddenly. Because of the Mapes Hotel, I remain enchanted by elevators. And by Keno women.

Then there was, there is, the Idea of a Hotel Room: bad art that looked so good back then; massive lamps; beds better than what we had at home but still sad like abandoned cars. Garish drapes as heavy as lead. Stationery, envelopes, post-cards, pens!

...And the hotel detective, whom I saw just once, bulging arms in a shiny suit, hair slicked back, a red mole on his neck, a shiny forehead, and on his face what I would learn later to call a smart-ass smirk.  He was rushing to the elevator--trouble somewhere in the Mapes Hotel. But he saw us and let us get in.  He took the stairs. Down, down.

181. Woman In An Elevator

She entered a stainless steel elevator, ghostly florescent light behind the ceiling's translucent plastic. In the elevator was an empty chair, black fabric, reddish-stained wooden arms, wee black wheels. As the elevator rose, the woman looked at the chair and thought many things. Imagine, please, selections from the variety of what she thought then in the steel elevator, a large box. Out of the elevator after it moved, she ceased thinking about the empty chair inside it.  Scenes of our lives change quickly, constantly. The woman in the elevator thought this, thought we have no control, but knew then she would move through her day as if she and we did have control because that is how we must move most of the time. Up and down went the chair in the elevator.

180. Boulder Man

Nothing but a boulder-man now, that's me. I've become a rock in the road I used to travel. Pry and roll me, young vagabonds--tip me over the side. I'll smash some brush or hit a tree--hell, maybe bang into the red-rusted chassis of a '54 Ford, all covered over with weeds.  And you if young may think, Wow, cool--that sound!

It's just me, boulder-man, me and gravity--one dance before last call, tumble-tumble: one dance.

179. Is, Was, Lew Welch, Weldon Kees

You live in Is but think in Was. To Be has become something of a joke, a narrow corridor with doors at the end opening on to a bone-yard.

Was isn't, but you may pretend it is. What is consciousness besides memory?

Details fatigue: a gray sparrow on white gravel in what was East Berlin; a sauna full of nude, genial people in Uppsala; a red bloody torn lip in Sacramento; a coiled rattlesnake beneath honey-smelling brush, Sierra Nevada.

To live in Is is to complete tasks and then wait. Boredom and fear compose ennui, a cold French stew.

Politics numbs because it's corrupt, often evil, but also deadly boring. Deadly.

You wonder where Lew Welch's remains ended up, the .30-.30 rifle next  to them in some Sierra Nevada ravine, not far from the South Fork of the Yuba River.  Was he wearing Levi's with red thread? Lew's move is not a move you want to imitate, but it was a move. Was.  Somebody will stumble on a bone or two.Will.

Not so with Weldon Kees, the car left on the red Golden Gate Bridge, the gray current below, so terribly efficient--like life itself. Play us some going-home music, Mr. Kees. A great chord on a golden piano.

178. Red in Love

There's something red in love, in making love, in sex. "Making love." (?) That sounds like manufacturing.

But back to something red in love--there is. It could be vision or toe, tongue or nipple, or down there in crucial climes, our intemperate zones.

It could be a dream of a red pillow as vast as a mansion.  It could be a sulfurous match-tip struck, afire, and introduced to tabak or to Santa Maria Juana.

It could be a question lined with red velvet. "Do you want to dance?"  "Do you want me to . . .?"  "Do you want to go swimming?--yes, yes, of course, nude."

It could be anything red in love.  It could be anything--red in love. It could. Could be. Red. Red in love.

177. People and Things

People and things, child. People with things. People with people and things. A red thing: dot.

People-made things. Tools, child. Things not people-made: a cardinal in Kansas.

A red thing: tip of a lit cigarette in dark. Sigh of lungs.

Oh, child: a rug dyed red.

The People of the Things: think of all the things in just one American home. The home's brick chimney, red.

Things people know/don't know/deny/believe/don't want to know. They don't want to know, child.

Dear People,


Well, here we are.


Sincerely,


Things


P.S. Red light!

176. "Carnal Apple, Woman Incarnate," by Pablo Neruda

Here
is
the
link:

LINK

175. "The First Kiss Came With Flame," by Carl Sandburg

LINK

174. Red-Cedar Think

Think red cedar consider aroma mountain geology owned science Descartes God wheat bread ground fire husbandry gather stay goat dog domesticate darkness fear myth anything can kill hope medicine faith.

Cedar consider stare wind touch-red-bark, smell cedar-sap. Memory light/no light, life/no life. Red resin. Consider cedar. Think cedar your life memory green memory red thick bark. Yellow pollen wheat faith science knows nothing sure is ground fear darkness and cold death faith cedar rooted in ground in soil in rock. Water.

173. Federico Garcia Lorca: Casida of the Reclining Woman

 Link:

Casida

172. "Travel," by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Link:  "Travel"

171. Some Fable-Days

For ten minutes one afternoon, I became
an elephant. I walked heavily away from
where I work, wagging my heavy head.
Cackling minions threw pebbles at my
sad ass.  On another day, I became a cat:

Somebody was talking at me in front
of a group, apparently scoring clever points.
But I'd lost the topic, and word-like noises
from her mouth might as well have been
red jello for all the sense they made to me.
So I stared. I was Cat--there and not there,
dozing in the pride of my mind, not hungry
and therefore supremely disinterested.

I've spent many days as a badger, digging,
fretting, rooting around, growling to myself,
making a lovely mess of my underground
burrow, getting lots of badger-writing done.
Some fable-days, I tell you, are often
just what a human being needs--to stay human.


Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom

170. Dead White Weight

Rebecca worked at the institution. It was built chiefly of red bricks. On some days, the institution was a bank, on others a software company, on still others a college, and so on.  This variation of professional pursuits made the institution an exciting place to work, like a middle-class carousel.

When Rebecca arrived each morning, she discovered what her job was that day--loan-officer, professor of history, project-manager, and so on.  Changing from one job to another was easy for her.  The jobs--or rather, positions--all involved talking, projecting some mild authority, and more or less acting the part.

The more difficult aspect of the institution for Rebecca was that it was white--80% to 90% of the employees were white, and the ethos of the place was white. So was Rebecca; however, she thought more people from different ethnic backgrounds should work there, provided they wished to do so.  She thought greater diversity would improve the institution, rescue it from the bubble of the past in which it seemed to exist, and make it more just.

But Rebecca had tried to change the institution in this regard for so long that she was realizing it wasn't going to change. It liked to promote itself as interested in persons not white; it hired a few a few of these and it brought visitors who were Black, Asian American, Indian, and Latino.  But in all the important, self-conscious, structural, and reflexive ways, the institution remained white.

--Because it liked itself that way: Ockham's Razor. It was comfortable being white, and being white, it valued the comfort. Everybody was fluent in whiteness, especially those who weren't white, for their jobs--positions--and safety depended upon such fluency.

Rebecca's co-workers like to congratulate themselves on being white using oblique methods. But in these instances, the translation of the gesture, speech, proposal, or attitude was apparent.  "Hi, Bob--you and I are white--can you dig that?"  "Jenny, I like what you said yesterday in the meeting--white on!"

Occasionally Rebecca's efforts to change the situation were complimented. Otherwise they were easily finessed or opposed. Rebecca was discouraged now.  She didn't think she had the right to give up trying to change the institution, but at the same time, trying meant constantly attempting to lift a dead white weight, an enormous, heavy blob.

Rebecca was experiencing fatique.  The fatigue of an activist and ally.  Institutions remain forever young and often forever white, and all they have to do to thwart anyone proposing real change is to smile and not change. Eventually the one wanting change will wear down.

However, Rebecca also didn't want to make the white activist's and ally's mitake of complaining to one or more of her friends and colleagues who weren't white, for, in fact, innumerable people had seen the trouble she'd seen, and much worse, obviously.

She pressed on, doggedly, making proposals, raising issues in meetings while people rolled their eyes.

Then one day she came to work, and she was astonished to find that the institution had painted all the red bricks white. The entire facility glowed in sunlight now. That wasn't the only surprise. Signs, memos, mission-statements, and websites proclaimed, "We are no longer a multi-professional institution. We are no the Institute for the Study of People (Who Are White)."

In more detailed documents, Rebecca learned that "in this post-racial society, it's important to study people (who are white)."

"But," said Rebecca to a colleague, "it's not post-racial--we're 80% to 90% per cent white here."

"That kind of talk is so yesterday," the colleague said. "We're 100% people!  Black and White are old news. We have no white people here. We have people!"

"That's a remarkably white thing to say," Rebecca said quietly.

"Get on board or say goodbye," said the colleague.

On her last day of work at the institution, Rebecca stripped naked in a quadrangle between white buildings and quickly painted herself a medium brown.  Getting her back grown was tough, but she'd brought a long-handled paint-brush.

People (who were white) from Security came.  Three were white. They waited while the municipal police arrived. Rebecca was given a long coat to cover herself and arrested for public indecency. She said, "Medium brown is not an indecent color."

Rebecca is sad ow because she's unemployed, although she has prospects.  She misses talking to her colleagues, especially the ones who used to be not-white, back in the racial era.  She imagines telling these colleagues, "White people are amazing. They never stop."  And she hears the knowing laughter of her colleagues.

She doesn't miss trying to lift the dead white weight of the institution.  Sometimes she puts on a hat and sunglasses and visits the institution after business hours.  She walks up to one of the red-brick walls now painted white, and she pushes, hard. The white wall doesn't move.  She hums, "Joshua fit the battle of . . . ."
A Black person comes by, Linda, whom Rebecca knows well.  Linda says, "Hi, Rebecca."

"How did you know it was me?" asked Rebecca.

"Because you're pushing on a white wall."

"Oh."

"Come," says Linda, "walk with me for a while."

169. Empty Gift-Box To Be Filled By You

I know a man who ran a pickle-factory for decades. He writes poetry now, and he publishes the poems of others.

I know a woman who was invited to play bass in B.B. King's band. She became a pastor instead.

I know a man who played drums for a famous rock-band in the 1970s.  He's an electrician.

There's this other woman I know--she worked as a spy. She teaches kindergarten.

And so on.  You know people like this, too.

When people change what they do, do they change who they are?

This question is like an empty gift-box--let's wrap it in red paper. The gift-box is for you. Here you go! Now you'll put the answer to the question inside, and to help fill up the box, you may of course elaborate on the yes, the no, the maybe, and/or the I-don't-know.

It's terribly impolite of me to give you--virtually, at that--an empty gift-box, and for that, I apologize. 

168. Ponca City, Oklahoma

Car broke down. It's sitting up high in the bay of a mechanic's shop. Mechanic's an inked biker.  He's probably done time because he has that kiln-dried look. His wife runs the office. She's pretty and pretty smart and out of place: a woman who falls in love with men who become projects.

Of course the heat's thick. It's Oklahoma, and it's summer. The office is an asylum of invoices touched by rusty dust. You want the mechanic to know enough to be able to let you get  back on I-35 and take it on in to OKC for some cold beer and glassy-eyed gazing at a baseball game on somebody's big TV--tornado-warnings cutting in at intervals.

You want her to stop talking, the mechanic's wife.  But she needs to let you know she went to college, too, and you feel sorry for her. In the bay, the mechanic lights a cigarette with a blow-torch and stares at you.

167. The Czar of my Life

I applied to be an emperor but never heard back.

At work, I pretend having no power is an honor. I wear having no power like an invisible red sash.

I'm so common and overlooked, beige walls want to adopt me.

In my restful moments, I'm the czar of my life. I run the show. I say what goes, usually right before sleep deposes me in an easy coup d'etat.

166. Robots and Real People

/
/
/
/

Whenever a real person shows up, the robots panic.

They seek and execute ways to drive the real person away. You can tell they're robots not humans by the way they gather closely, mean and jealous motors inside purring, red fearful lights inside them coming on. The robots entertain each other by agreeing with what each other says, by flattering each other mechanically and speaking in the approved phrases.


If you are a real person who has found employment among the robots, you probably will want to get out of there fast.  Apply for other jobs. Don't fight it. Inside the robots, red lights are coming on. Don't fight it. The robots in a robot work-place win. 

165. Complete Works of Shakespeare

I bought another Complete Works of Shakespeare.  I know I should have given the money to a food-bank instead. I'm going to make a better choice next time.

The book has a hard red cloth cover. The book feels great to hold, if you like to hold books.

Bill's words hum frenetically in there like too many bees in too small a bee-box.

Old Bill, he did like to go on a bit.  He liked his characters to go on and on, rolling across iambic plains, talking, talking. And all of that is in this big red-covered book, in an age when books in this form are moving toward extinction.

It is all in this book--the kings, queens, cross-dressers, murderers, coincidences, speechifying, metaphors, meditations, love, hate, bigotry, sex, profanity, and wit.  And wit.

And there's a thin red-ribbon bookmark. This is one of those books that will go from hands to hands slowly over decades after I am gone. It will be a big red book on a leisurely journey, opening itself to anyone interested in a glance--Hamlet and Juliet read into walking on stage in print as many times as anyone wants.

It is a heavy, friendly book, a bit of a docile beast--Caliban, Falstaff, the nurse in Romeo and Juliet.

It is a book that would never contemplate suicide or fratricide or parricide.  It would never pick up a sword, or murder a rival, even as it agrees to contain such things--bees in a box, the words, Bill's words, humming, humming, the big red-covered Complete Works of Shakespeare, money for which, I know, should have gone to the hungry.

164. Robins and the Cause of Justice

Every year I forget how yellow the robins' beaks are until the robins reappear in March.  And of course robins' breasts aren't red. They are orange. 

For decades, I've been watching robins turn their heads to detect red worms under grass, and I still don't know if they are turning their heads to look or to listen or both.  It's almost like I don't want to know the answer to the question.

Every year the bright yellow of the beaks is like the latest worm: actual and fresh.

How does such a detail advance the cause of justice on Earth?

163. Hey, Chief, Relax

Hey, you have red eyes from over-work, not enough sleep, and who knows what else. Hey, chief, relax: we're all just along for the ride. Nobody drives. (It's okay to think you do, especially when you're young, but you're not young.) I mean, come on: the physical forces of the universe alone withdraw control from you, from all. Add in luck, the Leviathan that is humanity, and the helplessness of babies, and we're all just along for the ride.

What you may be able to decide, chief, is how low-down, mean, and nasty you're going to be (or not), and if you do go bad, how many lies you're going to tell to cover it up, and how much damage you think you really need to do just to be you.

Are you going to be a bad person or a good person, chief? (No, now don't quibble about definitions with me. Let's just agree we've both read philosophy.) Whether to be a bad person or a good one--that's a little piece of human business you can decide.  It's not much, chief, but it's something.

162. Big Man At the Bus-Stop

There was a big man
at the bus-stop today.
He had thick wild hair
and a broken leg,
aluminum crutches
and a wadded, wet
bus-schedule. He

wore cut-off jeans
in the rain, the temperature
below 40 Fahrenheit, and
a red-and-black NASCAR
jacket. His hands, thick
paws, were grimy, black
under the fingernails.

He had to get somewhere
in a hurry, he told me,
told anyone, everyone
in a loud voice. He
didn't say why he had
to get there soon. His
long hair was so oily
and heavy, the watery
wind couldn't push it
around.


Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom

161. Honey-Toned Chair

A honey-toned
rocking chair
next to a hearth
is composed of
red oak, which
used to be a tree,
which used to rock
in warm winds.

The tree's great-
grandparents were
acorns, which sat
together, attached
to a branch, in
presence of leaves
flushed yellow-red-orange
in late October,

when the honey's
been harvested and
the rocking chair's
seasons of seeming
a good idea begin.
Again, agaiN.


Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom

160. Birth Story

My parents, having sex, mixed the ingredients that would eventuate in me. Forgive, Lord, for they knew not what they did.  I know because my mother told me so. I had not been "planned."

I don't like to (and in fact don't) picture them having sex, but one must face the fact that one began to begin when a wad of semen embraced an egg.

Dr. Padgett pulled me from my mother, who lay etherized upon a table, into the rest of the world. And it was done--or begun: accident, miracle, inevitability, propagation, something (something else), nothing in the scheme of things.

My father was two canyons away in the Sierra Nevada, having wearied of my delayed arrival.  My gender allowed him to win a bet from a woman who asserted "he" couldn't have three sons in a row.  He was drinking her whiskey with her husband when the winning news arrived by phone (a party-line, common in the 50s).  I can see him in a red-and-black checked flannel shirt, the massive Swedish laugh--it's after midnight. The color of the scene over-cooked, as in those early Kodak color-shots, the reds and browns so deep.

I see my mother lying in bed, exhausted, wondering, wondering how she will handle it all now with a third son, and with her husband, an implacable mountain man.

The hammer-toe was there from the beginning, the blue eyes and dark hair with multiple cowlicks, and also no doubt the in-born reticent watchfulness: something told me in a sub-conscious secret baby-language to keep an eye on this whatever-it-is--this excess of things, light, motion, people, shadow, change.  Way too much excitement for anybody's good.  I remain suspicious of the whole arrangement.

On the advice of a Swedish great-aunt to whom I would deliver cream weekly five years later, they named me Hans, pronounced hands, Ansgar (beleaguered saint sent to Christianize the Vikings) Ostrom, which used to be Åström.

Birthed and named.  I happened, as did you: Well done.

159. "The Red Wheelbarrow," by William Carlos Williams

"The Red Wheelbarrow"

158. I Give You . . .

Poets, even famous ones, write nonsense like "I give you the sun."  I guess it's their job (our job--okay I'm a poet, too) in a way to write crap like that.

Now I can't even give you these words unless you take them like a moist red pamphlet handed out by a blood-shot-eyed youth on dirty corner of an urbane street.

Poets can't help themselves so they try to help others by means of words, which people need less than cash, food, time, medicine, and rest.

So here it is: I give you your 8th birthday-celebration, when the wild turkey ran through the yard with that flapping red thing under its chin, when your uncle tried to tackle it, cracking his collar bone, and you received a crucial gift that you still keep in a drawer no matter where you move. 

Yes, yes, this didn't happen to you, but now it did, or something like it did, and so I give that to you even though you already have it.  Happy Birthday.

157. Will There Be Anything Else?

"May I get you anything else?" said the waiter to Hiram.

"Yes," said Hiram. "A Turkish carpet, large, woven from silk and cotton; a woman wearing nothing but red copper bracelets; a private room; and then, if you will, send my thanks to God."

"More water, sir?" replied the waiter.

156. "Barefoot for a Scorpion," by Alan Dugan

please click on link to Youtube:

"Barefoot for a Scorpion"



from Collected Poems, by Alan Dugan (Yale, 1965).

155. The Sword Thing

I never wanted to live by the sword. I mean, some swords are nice to look at, and up until about age 6, you can have pretty good sword-fights with sticks.

But swords are heavy, awkward, and up to no good.

I certainly don't want to die by the sword, hacked to bits and splats of blood and waves of pain. Who wants to die by the sword?

I think swords now should be reserved mostly for Olympic fencing, museums, and locked display-cases.  I think it's best if people live and die by other means.

If someone challenges me to a duel, I might agree to play along, but not with pistols, not at dawn, and definitely not with swords. Ketchup-bottles--at three feet, and at around, say, 4:30 p.m.

154. May

May may mean you've come to
the end of a durable winter.
May encourages vines, stirs
hope in the vintner.

In May you might soon see
red buds and blossoms
but also mourn in sunlight
the heavy loss of loved ones.

On May Day if you're a laborer
you may march to a red flag,
which might be misinterpreted
as a communistic gag.

May's a good month for those
who feel they don't belong.
It's neither spring nor summer.
Alone, it listens to bird-song

and withdraws from June and April,
both too garrulous by half.
It prefers to cogitate, may-
be to share a mild, ironic laugh.


Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom

153. "Childhood," by Margaret Walker

"Childhood," by Margaret Walker

152. "Red Sails in the Sunset"

"Red Sails in the Sunset," Patti Page

151. Painted Rooms

In the green room, you wait to go on.
In the white room, nurses tend to you.
In the yellow room, you're meant to think bright thoughts.
In the brown room, someone's strumming on strings, reminiscing.
In the gray room, there is crime or storage or both.
In the blue room, you feel sad doom.
In the pink room, pink always makes a point.
An orange room makes for one bright joint.
In the black room, darkness is a friend.
A purple room is always gladly too much.
A red room's a fine place to get it on.
A tan and tawny room wakes up at dawn.

150. Treasure-Map

Darling, yes, of course I admire the necklace, with a delicate ruby, that I gave you, because you too admire it, but my eyes drift to that tender hollow between throat and chest-bone, then to the color of your skin--and to lines suggested by your collar-bones.  Then up my gaze goes to your face, a smiling face, which now becomes a slightly suspicious visage.  There's everything to admire there.

And then of course your hair, which now I kiss and sniff--your suspicions verified: I've lust not jewelry on my mind.

It's not as if the necklace is irrelevant, oh no. It's just that it's the starting point on the treasure-map, the map and treasure both being you.  The questions are many.  The questions include what will you decide to say and do, how do you see me, and will you offer your consent to me, your admirer.

hans ostr0m 2018

149.. Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer (Boogie Woogie Style)

148. Futility Falls

In the town of Futility Falls, the river dried up, withdrawing the falls. The Council tried to shorten the town's name to Futility, but citizens objected. Tradition.

At the high school, sports teams are called The Philosophers. The mascot's meant to look like Descartes but bears more resemblance to a Hollywood pirate.

Over at the Nice Try Motel, you may rent any vacant room except Kate's Room, which is vacant. A nationally known embezzler, Kate stayed in Futility Falls one night while on the lam. She promised to come back and pay to have artificial falls installed. Townspeople still send her letters in prison. Her room, which features red vertical striped wallpaper--a kind of vivid prefiguring of cell-life--has become a shrine of sorts. It's hard to say what it memorializes besides a spirited woman who cared enough and took the time to promise too much while trying vainly to flee authorities. 

Anyway, Kate's tale resonates in Futility Falls.

147. Season of the Horny Goat

In practice, seasons get all mixed up: Sprummer, Wautumn, Fring, Sfall. For weather's a day-to-day thing, and now climate seems iffy, tipsy, and turvey.

If it should be hot, my dear, take off all your clothes and bathe in sunshine and my gaze. Thank you!

If it should be cold, dress warmly, go out, come back in, take off all your clothes, drink hot chocolate or rum (which I shall have prepared), then roll around nude with me in front of the fire, light of red coals flickering on your thighs.Splendid!

Yes, it's true--I note your sigh--there is one constant season--the season of the horny goat, such as I.

146. UB40 ft & Astro- Red Red Wine ( w/ lyrics )

145. Red Seas and Biting Fleas

Red seas and biting fleas. Asthma-wheeze, with four consonances clogging up the passageway from A to a.

Alaska freeze--it does please certain animals.. Red salmon eggs, smooth women's legs.

A search for meaning, a red cedar leaning.

A sizzling mist, from a grimy grill, a red-brown moth on a window sill.

Futile worries for the world, shining red hair, curled.

144. Johnny Cash - Ring of Fire

143. "Susana Soca," by Jorge Luis Borges

143. Tasting Women

Sometimes I must stay away from my friend Hiram, for his mind not only runs in a sexual rut, so to speak--not unusual, that--but it also runs to the bizarre, the outlandish, the silly.
Just the other day he said, "You know, to me a woman-tasting makes much more sense than a wine-tasting."
I sighed. Against my judgment, I said, "Go on. Explain."
"Oh, let's say twelve naked women lie down on beds in a large room, and a taster briefly explores their vaginas with, in my case, his tongue and mouth. You'd rinse your mouth between tastings. You'd note your findings on a card."
"What is wrong with you?" I asked.
"What do you mean, as if I didn't know?" he replied. "What's wrong with me, according to you, is that I'm Hiram, one enthralled and obsessed by women, by the female form, as expressed by individual women-people."
"'Women-people'?"
"Women."
"Hiram, you'd have to hire them. Sex workers. Do you want to be going down on sex workers? Or were you thinking of asking for volunteers among your acquaintances?"
"The latter," he said--in a mumble. "Now I see the flaws. The logistics are impossible. Ah, but what if? What if! Each woman with her own particular taste. I am sucking, licking, and fondling the pudendum of each. Some shaved, some not--perhaps one of them pierced on the labia. I am--I'd give each one a red rose!?
"Very thoughtful of you. I suspect they might want more."
"Indeed," he said, missing my point. "And I'd want to give it to them--sucking toes, licking thighs--kisses, nibbles. Burying my head in there, but gently, giving my all. I'd feel obligated to satisfy each one."
"Hiram, try thinking normal thoughts."
"Only right before I go to sleep, my normative friend. The normative numbs me; it is of our zomboid culture."
"Women aren't bottles of wine."
"I know that, you sententious bastard!" Hiram was animated, to say close to the least. He drew attention from other patrons at the bar. "That's the point--to taste women, a woman, not wine. To taste! I feel as if I can taste them now!"
"Keep it down, fellas," the bartender said--not his first time having to admonish us.
I bought Hiram a glass of red wine, pinot noir, and left a tip whose size was appropriate for our having been admonished.
And here I am, thinking Hiram's non-normative thoughts, imagining myself as the taster. The taster.

142. The Unfortunate Episode of Hiram's Sunburned . . .

My friend Hiram was in a storytelling mood again the other day. He doesn't so much reminisce as re-conjure--mostly episodes, alas, involving romance, desire, and sex. How much does he make up? Who knows? I ought to know, as I'm his friend, but I don't. I do know Hiram is mostly guileless. His recent tale . . .

They rented a house, my friend Hiram and this woman with whom he was enthralled. Rented it for a week. North of San Francisco, I gather--where the coastline is ragged and rugged: cliffs, battered trees, windblown slopes of scrub-grass, misshapen trees clinging to rock, mist and fog in the morning but hot sunlight, in summer, in the afternoon: and therein lies part of the tale.

It was a big house, and, in Hiram's direct words, "She and I set as one of our tasks to fuck in every room. For example, she got on top of me, but facing away, in the--"

"I get the picture," I said. Did I really need to know which room?

Hiram allowed as how there were acres between the houses in this odd seaside community, which was called something like Sand Ranch. Privacy abounded, at any rate. So he decided to sun-bathe nude. "Once I was out there, in the afternoon, and she just walked right out of the house naked and sat on my face. Good times!"

"Is that right?" I said.

"Well, of course it's right. Why would I make up such an episode?"

"To impress me?"

"I don't--"

"I know, I know: you don't respect me enough to try to impress me. You've used that line. As you continue to regale me with these tales."

"Anyway," he said, plowing on, "after she sat on my face--ah! I recall the sight of her gleaming stomach above me, her breasts, her face wild with delight!"

"Anyway," I said, "after . . . ?"

"I fell asleep, of course, and she went inside to do--something. Cook? I forget. So, yes, I fell asleep--and sunburned my cock something fierce. It was almost as red as a boiled lobster, and I'm not kidding. It hurt. Later it peeled. And the rest of the time there, she kept calling it, 'Red rooster, red rooster.'"

"I see." I did see. The imagery was vivid.

"But I'm telling you, that was the only flaw in the week in that large house. We did it in every room and outside. We fucked so much that--"

"I get the picture," I said.

141. Red Arts of Desire

Sonnet: Red Arts of Desire

It's true. I do desire you. I want
to borrow from your library all parts
Of you; the whole of you is what I hunt.
But more than that, I also seek red arts
By which you have bewitched me. I am yours.
Cliche? Of course. Desire like this is mad.
It tries to walk through glass and see through doors.
But this condition I prefer to Sad.
What should I do? Well, all I can, I guess.
I am not clever, so I'll be direct.
This business of desire's a wretched mess
Unless, until, desires intersect.
Ah, well. You know precisely how I feel.
In prayer and surrender I do kneel.


copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom

140. 26 Things That Will Never Go Out of Style

argyle
baking
cunnilingus
doors
empathy
fellatio
generosity
hints
intercourse
jeans
knowledge
love
music
nonsense
oxygen
play
questions
red
soup
touch
undergarments
vegetables
wonder
xo
yams
zinc


Make your own list of 26!

139. She Was Just Out of the Bath

Not long out of the bath, she wore a robe. She sat back in their favorite chair, expansive and plush, and he sat on the floor, painting her toenails deep red.

She talked, then he talked, and they laughed. Sometimes she'd hold up the glass of white wine and look through it at him, just to see what the image might be. She imagined him swimming in a golden sea.

He finished painting her toes, and while they dried, he played a bit of jazz on the piano. Then he talked, and she talked, and they laughed.

Now they both held up glasses of white wine and looked through them at each others. She pronounced the red toenails dry.

He stirred, and moved from where he was sitting to the floor in front of her. From his knees, he leaned up and kissed her. They kissed. She opened her robe.

Then he returned to the bright red toes and kissed them, and, kissing at intervals traveled slowly from toes up the legs to the thighs, then to the belly, the breasts, back to the belly, down to the thighs, inside the thighs and now to the cherished place, and she opened her legs more and lay back and day-dreamed she was floating on a golden sea, and now she slid slowly and fully into expansive pleasure; it felt wonderful; she raised her head briefly and looked at the top of his head, and then she looked past his head to her knees and caught a glimpse of her freshly painted, her red-painted toes, and after a while, a long, languid while, she came, and she came, and she came.

138. Triolet for Going Down

I like it when I'm going down on you,
invited to that lovely place of yours.
I stay to do what I can pleasurably do.
I like it when I'm going down on you.
The colors there are various and true,
from reds to pinks to darks--intricate doors.
I like it when I'm going down on you,
invited to that lovely place of yours.

137. Manufacture Me, Baby

Manufacture me, Baby,
according to your own designs.
Manufacture me, Baby--
make me yours along the lines
you have in mind.

Mold and fashion me
in the factory
of your lustful will.
What a thrill to get
produced by you.

Industrialize me
in your plant.
Run me through
an assembly line.
Baby, you are fine.

Paint me red
and box me up;
send me direct
to your front door.

Make me part
of your new
product line.

Manufacture me, Baby.
you know what my design is for.
I'll be your item and your tool,
a cool invention of your own.
Ah, bring me home.

Manufacture me, Baby.
I'll no, not ever,
leave you alone.

136. Hiram Muses Priapically

Hiram found himself moved to muse on his phallus. He, too, thought the subject tedious, and yet there he was, musing on it.

Hiram's cock had led him on many adventures, or rather had served as one symbol for and supporting character in calamities, quests, comedies, ribaldries, carnivals, and waltzes of desire.

As it happens, Hiram's cock was thick. It's real name was penis. It was thick and, when hard, even thicker, as you might deduce, what with the diverted blood.

When it was hard, it curved--to the left. it was a thick Leftist cock. If he'd had an opportunity, Hiram explained to me one day, he'd have chosen one that didn't curve, but this cock had served well and, he believed, others well, too. Through most of his life, it had been a dutiful, over-eager cock, too ready for adventure, in Hiram's experience.

When it was hard, it often turned nearly red, at least at the head, a sign of shameless embarrassment, of almost porcelain rigidity and smoothness. In very recent days, however, his cock had seemed to shake off its lassitude and distortion. He'd been waking up at 4:00 a.m. with an erection. He liked to grab the cock, a big fistful. The cock then grew harder as if to defy Hiram.

Hiram said things to his cock at these times, he explained to me (rather in too much detail) one day. He said things to it like, "What's going on with you?"

But the cock had never liked to converse, even as some women had addressed it directly or obliquely over the years.

Hiram said to me, "I was in bed, and I thought, 'Here I am in bed with a hard cock in my hand. It's a thick cock that curves to the left. It's the same cock I've always had, and it's not retired yet. A thick cock that curves to the left is such a specific, irrefutable existential fact--not an identity, per se, but also not something to refuse to acknowledge.'"

That was the first time I'd heard Hiram say "existential."

135. Possibility on the Mountain

Friend, there has to be
a possibility on that mountain.
It could be any color--gold
or red, tan or black, maybe
white or blue. We could seek
it--hike and hunt. Or let it
be and see if it comes down.
I've sought, and I've waited,
and the results from both
seem the same. So it's your
decision, friend, as we stare
at the mountain, its intricate
patterns of light and shadow
and our blending here and there
of what we see and what we wish
to be. The concept, "today,"
assures us the way a snapshot
distracts us from considering
the abyss into which past
flowed. Before we do anything,
friend, let's eat.

134. Red-Headed Stepchild

A magazine:

http://redheadedmag.com/poetry/

133. Tennis Love

So we’re here again in a space made
Tensely playful by a net, a droll
Boundary we agree to allow. We improvise
Taut games of give and take, parry and thrust, must
And maybe, please and thank you.

Pleasurable strokes generate
Heat and light sweat. We take turns serving,
And accepting service. Stay tied at deuce indefinitely.
Add in, add out, a soft fuzzy texture to certain
Important features. We utter oaths.
Make passes to open court. Your defeat of me
Feels better than victory, so when we meet

At the net, a French kiss during which pink
Tongues and red desire play doubles ensues.
Continues. We’re hot after the match, so
Hot, my dear lovely opponent, my partner,
My line-judge and lascivious coach.

132. The Space Between Your Legs

In this space between the margins,
I put words that might be called
erotica, a quad, a wad of
syllables. The words concern
the space between your legs.

My preference
isn’t to fill the space between
the margins with words but to meet
the space between your legs, face
to space. But here I am writing, as
poets must and do. And where
are you? . . . Its many shapes, vaginal
versions let us say: forever fascinating--
well, at least to me.

The space can be anything, or seem. Then
the rooms—so several, mysterious, and
secret. The aromatics and secretions,
the softness of enfolding, the slyness of
micro-zones, buttons, and sensors.
How can something so self-
contained contain so much, so many
intricacies? Never answer that.

Your thighs and knees, which
sometimes rise like sides of an ampitheatre
and seem to coax, to cheer, me on: I see them
peripherally. I see the subtly
rolling, soft terrain—-up there, plateau above
the space between your legs. Miles further on,
it seems, lay breasts and shoulders, your head
and hair, your face, an arm that lies paralell
to your body and one whose
forearm lies briefly now across your eyes, as you respond,

enjoy; while you, my empress, receive reports from the
space between your legs, which I’ve engaged, speaking
in tongue, bad pun, lapping, lipping, dipping. Mumbling
sweet somethings. The ending’s more than happy, and
it leads to other chapters of the night, which could
of course be day. Of course, of course these

words are nothing, nothing like it is, nothing like
the space and spaces, the exact full moments. The
measure of it all. Erotica’s
outside the spaces, lustfully and gustily making things
up about the subject, off and on the subject. Aha!
You’ve returned. Immediately you sense my elaborate
but obvious plot to get you back in bed, where recently
you decided to lay a red bed-spread.

131. "Little Devils," by Pablo Neruda

130. "'View From the Golden Rooms,'" by Tammy Robacker

Poem read + video:

"On 'View From the Golden Rooms ' "


The painting is by Trinda Love.

129. "Cherry Ripe," by Robert Herrick

Reading and video of "Cherry Ripe," a short poem by Robert Herrick:


Cherry Ripe

128. Red Flag Over the Fort

I'm flying a red flag over my fort today.

The fort's what you might call imaginary.

The trouble is, for some people a red flag is something of a red flag. So I expect some people will come up and interrogate me: What does it stand for? Are you a Communist or a devil? Aren't you a patriot? Are you a nut? Would you like a punch on your nose?

I'm preparing some answers: It stands for red and for flagishness. I'm probably not a Communist, but please define "Communist," and then we'll be sure, the both of us. I'm definitely not a devil. My red flag's not a national flag because I never got my license to be a nation unto myself. I hear the preparation-course is awful. Even my fort's pretty weak in spite of being imaginary. Because of, some might say.

I'm what you might call a sane nut. Think hickory. I would not enjoy a punch on or even near my nose, and by "near" I mean anywhere on my body. Plus, you don't punch people when you are a guest in their imaginary fort. Please use your manners and good sense. The red flag not only represents red and flagishness, but it also represents manners and good sense.

I'm going to walk along the interior perimeter of my fort now and look up at the red flag every so often.

127. Seeing Bukowski Read

When I saw and heard Bukowski read, late 1970s, I recognized him as a shy, frightened man similar to red-faced drunks I'd seen in bars, High Sierra. Life kicks the shit out of people, some of whom re-emerge in bars, mostly to drink quietly but occasionally to boast and insult; to observe astutely; and even to prophesy. Thus Bukowski.

If such men and women should bark or snap sometimes, or if a mist of rage should cloud their eyes momentarily, there's nothing to fear in most cases. It's only (only?) the result of pain.

Bukowski came close to draining a six-pack of bottled beer as he read for an hour or so. He tipped both the bottles and his head back, as if blowing a horn. His face was craggy, pocked, flushed, and interesting. It was Bukowski's face. It belonged to Bukowski. We liked what he read.

126. He Ended Up There

Anyhow, I ended up here, which features red bricks, noble sentiments, and the kind of people in charge you'd expect.

There are bathrooms and trees.

Each year the ones in charge unveil a new sculpture representing how much better the place is supposed to be. The piece is always named, "The New Us."

Then most of those who ended up here begin a new round of rancid betrayals, acidic hatreds, and psychotic indulgences. It's quite something to try not to see.

Me, I go to my assigned rooms and tasks but spend most of the time--where else?--in my mind because anyhow I ended up here, I'm outnumbered, and I might as well get some work done.

125. Clear and Difficult

It's easy to be clear: "I want to borrow money from you." "No."

It's easy to be difficult: "Red endless Duncan salts Dante, oui, to the sea in ships: Zeitgeist, oh Babylon."

It's hard to be clear: So much depends upon "depends upon."

It's hard to be difficult: Il miglior fabro = I just wrote some Italian; what do you think about that? I could have written, "To my pal, Ezra, a damn fine writer," but too much St. Louis in that.

It's good to live and write in the groove into which you've moved and to shut out notions of clear and difficult and do neither for its own sake but instead wake to your own moods.

124. They Say Rust

They say rust never sleeps. It doesn't wake up, either. It's rust--red, orange, annoying. It's a residue, like lipstick on a collar or the trail a politician leaves.

I've tried to like those metal sculptures left outside to rust, but I can't. They look like negligence or surrender, and keep thinking of lubricating-oil. I always want to report the sculptures to the Rust Authorities, but I don't. I'm no snitch. I just look away.

But I admit it: I like the smell of rust, O.K.?

123. Force of Nature

"Force of Nature," performed by Joe Vaughn, Jr.:


force of nature

122. Song and Video: "Lady of the Dew"

A link to a Youtube video/music featuring Tim Lulofs performing "Lady of the Dew," music by Tim Lulofs, lyrics by Hans Ostrom:

"Lady of the Dew"

121. Vivienne Is Disburbed

When Vivienne walked around the city that day, everything seemed in proportion. Clouds were large but spaced; the sun shone. Automobiles fit on the streets--no military-assault vehicles, no dirigibles on wheels. She saw one comparatively short person, but this person was walking with a companion her size, they held hands, and they appeared to be in love.

True, Vivienne walked past a massive blackberry patch, ridiculously immense and yet so casual about its assertion that it assumed the unobtrusive green mass one sometimes sees in paintings, a suggestion of forest. Moreover, just to the side of the patch stood a tall foxglove stalk in bloom. Its singularity served as a counterpoint to innumerable, disheveled, thorned vines. Its pink flowers looked like satin bells too soft to produced sound. A bumblebee climbed into one of these bells and disappeared.

Only when Vivienne neared her home again were things thrown off. She saw what seemed to be a butterfly walking on the ground, hauling its wings. Or was it some insect in a winged stage? Anyway the wings were black and red. They seemed built correctly for flight, but the creature struggled under them like an unfortunate actor or a laborer asked to carry a sheet of aluminum roofing on his shoulders. The background to this clumsiness was gray asphalt. Vivienne didn't pick up the creature.Vivienne walked on, disturbed.