Hans Ostrom Poems

The Etruscans employed fulguriators-
interpreters of lightning strikes.
Jagged, sizzling bolts wrought phrases,
injected warnings, illumined portents,
...

Among fictional live bodies lies a fictionally dead one,
made so not by itself but by one or more bodies who
had a mind or minds, means, and opportunity
to kill. Identification ensues. Who is dead, who
...

When I get to
feeling bad,
I think about sex,
and I get to feeling better.
...

Neither bone nor skin nor food,
fingernails are tools we mouth,
...

An alley never concerns itself. An
alley always concerns the social
geometry that shapes it—a pompous
...

In El Greco's 'Christ on the Cross, ' earth
rolls up into sky, which looks like sea-
and it's all one blue-black mass
behind the hanging man who said
...

In the Memory Unit, we speak
euphemistically. We
watch the very old and almost
mindless sit or lie like reptiles
...

'Have you, ' she asked, 'done enough
to counteract severe effects of USA's
vicious racism? ' Springing from reflex,
...

When you cough, the bronchia
fire yellow or green mucous-bullets
into your mouth. It isn't disgusting.
...

The Fyris River
is a fine small river-
energetic and direct.
It runs through
...