Poet's Musings
138 FOLLOWERS
A blog of poetry posts and posts about poetry, writing, and life, with recordings of poems via Youtube link to the langstonify channel.
Poet's Musings
12h ago
An elephant escaped
the Point Defiance Zoo
and strode the streets
of Tacoma briskly, briefly,
as if going to work.
At a summer party
my parents threw, outside
in the High Sierra, the ever-
silent plumber, Otto,
sipped whiskey. He
saw a horse come up
to the pasture fence.
Otto climbed the fence
& leapt on the horse,
which galloped and tossed
him off. Otto got up,
came back, climbed over,
and sipped more whiskey.
First time
her husband struck her,
she loaded the two kids
and some luggage
in the Chevrolet and drove
away, {No more of that shit,}
she said to her friend.
Th ..read more
Poet's Musings
1d ago
Poet's Musings
2d ago
Poet's Musings
2d ago
You collect photos, public records,
articles,, obits. Follow DNA maps.
Recover family lore. As you work,
you float out on a cloud,
looking down on all those people
you will never know
and who will never know you.
The mothers and miners, soliders
and bankers, caped eccentrics,
farm wives who plowed, gay
married uncles, preachers.
You cannot know them, only
scraps left behind, ghostly
outlines in chalk. They are
your family. They are not
your family. You want to build
a castle out of names, places, facts.
And live there, calling it Family.
It is a grand, fascinating
illusion, this ancestry ..read more
Poet's Musings
4d ago
Poet's Musings
1w ago
It's August in California's
Sierra Nevada mountains.
Green and gold and wildlife
reign. Bluest skies. You're
11 years old. You think of
September and school
and cold ball bearings
gather in your guts: dread.
It's July, same place.
You're sixteen, working
at your uncle's gravel
plant. He's often enraged
at life. He scares you.
Every workday morning,
carrying a gray lunch pail,
you walk slowly, as if
condemned, from your home,
up a dirt road
to the rock crusher.
It's more than five
decades later & you're
lying on a bed
in an operating room
lit up like a stage.
You stare at an
unspeaking se ..read more
Poet's Musings
1w ago
In a queue, people shuffle
toward a museum's door.
Finally all inside, they take off
coats, hats, gloves, scarves.
Winter chill did not come in.
The walls of the single vast
room remain blank. No art
depends from them. The people
sit or stand or lie and examine
each other, and each one
becomes a work of art, and each
one's a startling rendering. Shadow
and light, noses in profile or not,
heads, shirted shoulders,
bellies, lines and angles.
Sculptures alive, paintings
that breathe, dancers in repose.
Some people seize delight
from being seen & stared at.
Others look away or down.
G ..read more
Poet's Musings
1w ago
I own hundreds
of regrets.
I've made dozens
of bad bets.
I lavish love
on household pets.
I am a wealthy man.
It seems I always
had a job.
Cash in pocket,
corn on cob.
Clock on wall,
watch on fob.
I am a wealthy man.
I have love and hope--
interests, too.
These help to ward off
deepest blue.
People to see,
things to do.
I am I am I am
a wealthy man.
Hans Ostrom 2024 ..read more
Poet's Musings
1w ago
Editors who loathe the Linear
cut and splice hybrid scenes
as I lie on padded islands
in sleep's softly surging sea.
Under slumber, I lumber
into the theater of these films
like a weightless rhino.
Swing low, sweet
licorice lariat, wrapping up
my stubby hooved legs.
Sing low, buzzing
baritone, I'm lullabied
like incubating eggs.
Hans Ostrom 2024 ..read more