243. High Morning Learn

It is a high morning learn: the sun in a pure sky; an angel moves across a meadow. She stops here. Our wonder flares. Then we receive our high morning learn. Her dark face is purged of worry. She has lived beyond our evil. She take us to an aromatic red-cedar grove to teach us things that last beyond our petty passions. She is the angel of the high morning learn. div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">

242. Old Hardbacks

Many of the old hardbacks on my parents' bookshelves were bound or covered in red cloth. They were inexpensive, from publishers like Lippincott and Doubleday, names that carried magical cache with when I was ten. Some were westerns--by Zane Grey, Max Brand, and Ernest Haycox. Others were about anything. I found out books could be about anything. That was excellent to know. I was interested in the words more than in the stories the words freighted. We try to make stories more different from each other than they are. It's good for business and for writers' and readers' ego. But, you know, those books, they were made of paper, cardboard, glue, ink, and cloth. I liked the books for themselves, the way I liked salamanders and rocks for themselves. The books were small light objects that stood up until someone took them and opened them, and then the books were obligated to go to work. Not long from now there will be secret clubs composed of people who like to hold old books.

241. Scarf in Manhattan

Three decades earlier, he'd lost a scarf in Manhattan. Now he thought of it without being reminded of it by anything. His mind reminded itself and spit out the memory like a bone mysteriously rising to the surface of the La Brea Tar Pits. He doesn't know how his mind did this. He doesn't know why it did this. Often one to ruin magic, his imagination boorishly pictures the scarf rotted in a landfill after a last stop maybe with a homeless man or woman. Wool. Red.

hans ostrom 2018

240. Ava and Miriam

When the red shoes went missing, the blue chair stayed still. A yellow bird cheeped in a cage by the sill. What does life mean beyond the song? Miriam is white, and Ava is brown, and they wear the same color gown. They mourn the loss of the red shoes, they move the blue chair, and--ah!--the red shoes, there all along. What does life mean beyond the song? * * * * hans ostrom 2015

239. Maxx Lomar, Private Writer

I've always bought my notebooks one at a time. That's just the way I work. I'm a private writer. If something needs to be said, I'll say it, in writing. I'll use the one notebook I have going, the kind with lines on the page, with a vertical red capillary running down the left side to set the margin. I like to work alone. That's why I never joined the force. I have an imaginary secretary in the imaginary outer office, where I see my name, MAX LOMAR, stenciled in black on fogged glass, and underneath: PRIVATE WRITER . . . Oh, and then she came through the door, 5' 6" of trouble dressed in beauty. Yeah, she was quite a poem. She said she had some revisions that needed to be done and was I interested? I lit her cigarette for her. There it was, between her red-lipstick lips. The tip glowed as she took a drag. I looked in her violet eyes and said, "Oh, I'm interested, all right. Tell me more." Yeah, I'm Maxx Lomar, Private Writer. * * * hans ostrom 2015

238. White Ants

He'd been at his place of work many years when one day white ants swarmed into his official space and climbed all over him. They bit him, making red marks, stinging. He slapped and brushed, danced and ran. His co-workers stood stone-faced, looking at him and the white ants on him. "Will you help?" he asked them. "No," one of the colleagues said, speaking for all. "These white ants are a sign that you've never fit in here. They are a sign from the god of careers!" hans ostrom 2015

237. My Heart

My heart is like an onion tree, which doesn't exist, so bite me--hey, just kidding. My heart is like New York poets who report regularly on their ongoing struggles with genius. Oh, my heart might be saying "Brooklyn," but let me tell you, it is thinking "Harlem." My heart talks. And talks. "Shut up, will you, heart?" That is something I say to myself. My heart is like the CIA and the KGB. It tortures, patriotically. My heart is like an analgesic dream. It costs too much. My heart is like an ancient people who had it all going on. It is wiped out. My heart, my heart. Nobody cares what it is like. People care about their own hearts, as they should. Nobody cares what my heart is or that it is mine. My blah is like a blah and so is your blah

236. Strawberry Thoughts

Apple trees have strawberry thoughts. Thunder is dissatisfied. When he opened the closet, the clothes got quiet all of a sudden. They had been making jokes about him. Seeing lightning made her think of maps and arthritis. Hope covers dread like a watery, thin lotion. Street surfaces are a genre of art. Fog, in some instances . . . When the water-line broke, the fountain in the public square went dry, and we were sad to see how plain the fountain looked when it wasn't wearing water. "This poet was an undrafted free agent coming out of college, Al." "That's right, Bob, and look at her now." hans ostrom 2015

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