Hans Ostrom Poems

If an airplane is traveling west
at an average speed of 883 kilometers
per hour, and a train is traveling east
at an average speed of 56 kilometers
...

I refuse to answer
on the grounds that
language is terribly
imprecise, and that
...

You are part of this war. You
pay taxes. You are not part of this
war. No one in charge cares what
you think. You are part of this
...

Old padre, dry
as a cricket’s chirp,
as a lizard’s burp—
old padre, why
...

You should have seen her yesterday.
She was more beautiful than our
Idea of beauty; and the way
She carried beauty in her hour
...

There’s not enough of here.
We’ve memorized the coastline.
We plan for surprising storms.
...

We were after other forms, more light.
The house itself suggested other versions
of itself, faces within a face.
...

Variations on the Cogito


(if it’s okay with René)
...

The figure on the trophy
lifts its arms for as long
as its soft, shiny metal
will last. It doesn’t know
...

A yellow bus hauled us to Sacramento—
A field-trip to Franco Ziffirelli’s film.
We were as young as Juliet and Romeo,
Three years too young for Johnson’s war in `Nam,
...