Car Bomb
Cars and donkey carts, dust and noise, heat and mob
of humanity in a narrow street...Shoving and pushing
yet affable, of peoples who share a common bond.
A sharp flash that for a moment blinds the sun, then
the blast of an explosion, a shocked silence one can
hear a ticking clock, miles away.
Ambulance, police, screams and blood, when chaos
has abated, what’s left in the street are sandals that
belonged to those in the morgue...
poem by Oskar Hansen
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Immortality
Immortality
Every morning an old man, with a jute
sack slung over his bent back,
leaves his cottage.
His mother’s ancient shadow sits by
the fire keeps ember alive. She is older
than the oldest olive tree in the grove.
She came here when the earth was new,
stars not yet born and the moon was
a pale outline on black canvas.
Her son is gathering roses’ dream
and bird songs in the outer field to sustain
her in a life of perpetuity.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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The Primeval
The Primeval
Was it a distant cry of a child I heard?
it evoked an equally remote memory
of another child’s wail.
The body in, the bay is your dad’s.
The school yards is empty and cold as
the sea. The bullies have gone home and
the afternoon sun paints unyielding
windows reddish-purple.
Don’t go home yet. Your mother cries
relatives eat shop bought sandwiches;
whispers. I will stay here for a while
and listen to the silence.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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A Belly Full
A Belly Full
Christmas Eve, festive shop windows
cast glee on sleet, huddled in a doorway
as seeking the fading warmth of people
in a hurry to get home, an old man sits,
looks a window display of phony happy
Santa Clauses.
Tomorrow they’ll be brought down to
a dank crypt, oddly smile in darkness
with rats nesting in their vacant bellies,
while he- the real one- will carry on as
the town’s longest living drunk for one
more year.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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Zoo Animals
Zoo Animals
Jubilant Tripoli
Guns in every unsure hand
They call it freedom.
While zoo animals go unfed
A Kaddafi son cared for them.
It doesn’t matter now
Do not prioritize beasts
They are dumb beings
And have nothing to offer
In our blind struggle for freedom
And global capitalism.
So set the camels free to find
Their own oasis; let the lion
Roam the vast hinterland
And the eagle, soar high above
Human’s murderous pursuit.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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From Teheran with love
From Teheran with Love.
Side by side the beaus stood, hooded and
silent, they no longer heard charivari chants as
prayers on pale, shivering lips abruptly ended.
They had been warned, their love was banned
by the law of the land and by straight people’s
norm, and now forsaken even by their families.
They had tried to conform, but their bond was
too strong. Two Iranian men twist in the wind,
will their mothers, when alone, pray for them?
poem by Oskar Hansen
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Snowman
Snowman
I’m going to Sapporo next year to build a snowman
and win a prize, get my picture on the news and
be interviewed by David Frost.
I will not be arrogant and look down on ordinary
people, but everyone will notice that inner glow and
say: Truly there walks a famous, yet humble man.”
For I know, as you do, come spring my snowman will
melt, and only you admiration for the famous will
prevail, until someone builds a bigger snowman.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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The Scream
The Scream.
The new and young couple next door, for whom
all car adverts are made, came home late last night,
high voiced and full of spirit. Later on I heard her
cry out loud and thought: “wine, a man who slaps
his wife around when drunk.”
Next day I saw her in their cute little garden, she
wore the right outfit to prune roses, laughed
called her hubby darling and I remembered that
the voices of love and pain sound alarmingly
the same.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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The Great Encounter
The Great encounter
The mountains, that kept the sky from strangling us,
has all but disappeared. The sky has now swallowed
the roof of our houses. It is alarming, to be squished
between soil and sky as they embrace with selfish
lust in their hearts; finally intercourse. We must prise
them apart by building egocentric Dubai towers and
boasting Malaysian skyscrapers, to keep the sky pure,
and not let it sink into debauchery with mother earth.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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The Sentinel
The Sentinel
Another night begins and thoughts run riot, memories,
the shadow land called the past. Useless, experiences
have to be lived in the now, no room for reflection when
it happens. We have to live in our mistakes, when we
thought we were right. As night end and morning begins
I will reflect, when the sun comes over the Spanish hill.
But my distress is total the night will not leave its terror,
and the past seems like a better place.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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