Showing posts with label persona poem. Show all posts
Showing posts with label persona poem. Show all posts

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Hiram Goes to Cafe Fear

(another in a series of "Hiram" poems)



Hiram Goes To Café Fear


Hiram thinks, “Here I am sitting inside
my shirt, shoes, and trousers, on a chair
at a table in a café.  I am afraid
of dying.  Also of nothing.  I tell
a waitress what I want for lunch.
She brings it.  I eat it, holding off
fear for a while.  I don’t know
who or why I am.  I am aware
of sitting, afraid, inside my clothes
and body.  This is me, I think. 
So this is me and this my fear.”


Hans Ostrom, 2012


Friday, September 21, 2012

This Happens To Be It

All right, thought Hiram,
this happens to be it--
what is real. I am
walking home on a sidewalk,
and I am drunk,
and I am passing by
a twenty-foot boat
that is situated
between the sidewalk
and someone's yard,
and sophisticated engines
driving cars
are passing me,
and I look at my distorted
shadow exactly
as I did when I was seven
years old: it is
that elongated,
legs-go-forever
shadow.  And I am:
so what? And I
am walking home,
knowing the way,
what is home (?),
what is the way (?),
is this what is (?),
and I must go on
as if this is what is,
and I keep walking.


Hans Ostrom, 2012