As A Day Passes
As The Days Passes
The cemetery on the hill, facing the blue bay, looks inviting in spring sun.
A burial procession is coming up the road, the last one before lunch,
the priest has folded his hands and think of food. As soon as the coffin is
lowered, three the gravediggers go to work.
Kisses, hugs, tears and sober handshakes, the group of mourners break
up, the bereaved needs to eat too. We are because my wife’s mother is
in a hole in the wall with glass door, she came to change the cloth that
covers the coffin, but has forgotten the key.
I think of my mother, she has been dead a long time, memories of her
last years are bleached bones in the human wasteland I have a picture
of her when she was young and can now see, she a woman too, I cherish
my memories of that time. She had a difficult life, enough said.
Why do people drink? I drink to ease the yoke of my own mortality and
the whispering voice that mocks me. After a bottle of wine the evening
floats by, like a pink cloud on the sky, the scornful voice tires itself out
and falls silent, and softly now life is beautiful and full of dreams.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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Thw Musical Lady
The Musical Lady
I knew of a pavement café where tables and chairs were painted
in different colours, this to lend ambience in an otherwise dreary
street. A young lady, a student at the music conservatorium, came
here for lunch and always insisted on sitting on the same chair,
a rosa one; she was pretty in stern way, long black dress, flat shoes,
plain long hair and big glasses, waiters were happy to oblige her.
This caused jalousie amongst other chairs that wanted her to sit on
them too. In the night they ganged up on the rosa one, upended it
and scratched badly. The owner thought it was the work of vandals,
put the damage chair in the store room, but when the musical lady
came she insisted to sit on her chair damaged or not. Other seats
felt bad realizing it was not the rosa’s fault but the idiosyncrasy of
the artist, so in the night the spruced up the rosa till it looked as new.
But now the pianist didn’t want it, not the same as before, she said
and sat on a yellow chair. Feeling a miffed the gleaming new looking
seat said to itself: “No big shake she had a narrow, cold bum anyway.”
poem by Oskar Hansen
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Time For Clearance
Time for Clearance
I was in Norway once, the paradise of social democracy,
I saw many beggars, mostly Roma people who
the inhabitant wanted to get rid of or send them out of
town in the woods where they were not seen. If you are
beggar you got to beg where the people are, foxes and
sheep and have nothing to give. There is a strong sense
of nationalism in Norway. The police did not hesitate to
round up Jews and send them to concentration, and when
the war was over most of the police officers continued in
their work upholding the law. Norway as a nation has never
looked at itself and taking tally of the nation´s behavior
during war years, instead it is lauding the few who resisted
the Nazi occupation and made them into icons. They shot
Quisling but it didn´t stop what made a quisling possible.
Still has not done so. Oil made Norway rich, yet there
is poverty amongst the low paid and incomers for whom
there is little charity. The dark side of Scandinavia- violence, -
hate against people who are different from them… those
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poem by Oskar Hansen
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Kimono
The Kimono
I was joining a ship in another town; mother followed me the railway station,
which was not far as we lived nearby? From the train I looked down at her and
saw what I had never seen, a woman with unkempt hair, in an old overcoat
with missing buttons and shoes that needed heeling. There were many other
people on the platform, but she stood out looking like a bag woman.
I felt ashamed and guilty for feeling embarrassed. When returning I will have
money to buy her a new coat, shoes and send her to a hairdresser, I thought.
The train moved forward and I waved as long as I could see her.
A year later my ship had just left Tokyo, bound for the Panama canal, when
the radio operator came into the galley with a cable, I could see in his face he
had no glad tiding. I sat in my cabin grieving, took out the kimono I had bought
her it was made of silk and was as soft as a mother’s embrace; and I cried.
A knock on my door it was the captain who said: “No time for tears son, crew
needs to be fed and you are the cook.“ That night and many nights thereafter
I was lulled asleep by the ship’s steady heartbeat.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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Sea Life
A seafarer’s life
I didn’t want to work in a factory and get my hands dirty,
be locked inside grey walls six days a week, as everyone
else in my street was, so I got a job selling books from
house to house; only I was so terrible shy.
The first doorbell I rang was also my last, the woman who
opened the door was kind enough but she didn’t want to
buy anything, I nearly cried, and didn’t have the courage
to press my finger on another doorbell.
Selling pictures of farms, taken from a helicopter, was
my next job, out all day taking the bus to the countryside
only the day I got there it was raining I had no umbrella
and the first farm I came to was also my last.
I took a course training to be a waiter, in white jacket
and golden epaulet I looked handsome, so my sister said.
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poem by Oskar Hansen
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The Truant
The Truant
Trying to flee Christmas I opened a wrong door and
fell from sky into a glossy stygian lagoon, swam to
its northern shore and saw trees dismal graveyard,
petrified and silent trunks lit up by hazy moonlight.
I walked to the lake’s eastern shore and witnessed
the easy birth of a day; a deer chastely drank blue
water when a brown bear came out of the forest
attacking me. I jumped into the lake the bear too
jumped in, a better swimmer, but as it was going to
catch me, I ducked, swam up behind it, mounted
the beast- like a cowboy- and gripped my fingers on
the liberal skin folds of its fat neck. Howling angry
the bear swam in circles but couldn’t shake me off,
when it beat swam for shore I let go, the poor brute
crawled ashore and tired scuttled into the woods.
I followed a barely visible track and came to a town
where kind people gave me food (hotcakes, honey
and bacon,) a bath and a bed in a green room. I slept
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poem by Oskar Hansen
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British Election
British election
Three men in suit on a podium, they have no shame, all three want to rule
Britain and they tell lies and promise things they cannot keep. Since we are
Serfs at heart we vote for the most aristocratic one forgetting when the loaf
is cut, they keep the slices we get the crumbs. All three men agree about
the war In Afghanistan and it most continue to win the peace and they extol
the brave soldiers who in the end die from an unwinnable war. I should have
been sorry for the soldiers they are mostly un educated working class, and like
the idea of fighting the Taliban. Should they die which they do too often.
There is a great funeral no one does a military send off like the Brits. To end
this war we have to talk to the Taliban, and when we do the suffering of mums
and the deaths of young men have come to nothing. Three well tailored men
on a podium, sing from the same music sheet, produced by newspapers and
everything will be as before in a country where people are made to feel
ashamed of being working class, being told of dependency culture and working
hard when there is no work, and be told how lazy they are.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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The Clairvoyant
The Clairvoyant
Over a cold Nordic coast a seagull flies and sees
the bay between the island and the coastal town.
40 minutes each way by ferry. It’s an old gull and
has a blind eye and one leg; yes, you are right,
a real pirate I used to know years ago, it knew me
too when I was a cook on that a ferry boat, sat on
the mast and waited for me to throw scraps of
food into the sea shrieking harshly, it is the gulls
way of wishing me well.
This year has no ice in the bay, there was a time
when the ferry was icebound islander folk had to
walk on ice across to get to the shops, they still
do [there is a bridge now,) ferry been sold and
is plying its trade on the delta of Bangladesh.
The day is clear I’m a seagull and can see the past
lucid as the day it is lucky that I can’t see the future,
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poem by Oskar Hansen
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No Butter?
No Butter? (when a country practice monopoly)
“Butter, the chef said, I can’t fry a snitzel without butter? If I use margarine
it gets too salty and tastes like whale, if I use olive oil, it gets a Portuguese
flavour, a snitzel is Austrian. How can you fry an egg without using butter,
one loses the taste of clover and rural idyll, farm yards and chickens looking
for worms? ” ” Sorry the restaurant manager said, but we have no butter,
you gotta use margarine and anyway the guests are not chefs they will not
notice the difference.”The chef looked aghast, put down his ladle and said:
“You can’t mean that, has all my work comes to nothing? ” Took off his apron,
had tears in his eyes, ready to walk out into the cold night and not return.
“Hang on the manager said, without you I can’t run this place, it is the caring
way you prepare food that our guests like you they know there is a butter
shortage, but they don’t mind as long as they now you are the chef.”
Mollified the cook took his apron back on lifted his ladle and said, “Ok, but
see if you can get some butter even if you have to buy it from the Danes.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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A Female Pedophiliac
Mother's best friend a shapely woman with a sexy smile
I was fifteen and went to her house with a message-
something about a wedding where mother was cooking-
and she seduced me... Can't remember it clearly only that
I was trembling by the sight of her nudeness.
She did the rest, the ecstasy and the enormous newness
of pleasure was like a dream come true... we made love
and I died every time in her ravenous encirclement.
When I left her house I was a person bewitched but had
the sense to worry what mother would say by me being so
late, but I told her I had met some friends and we had
gone down to the park feeding the ducks and talking to
the girls... Next time I saw her I went beetroot not sure
if I had had a dream, but when mother went into the kitchen
to make coffee she told me to come back to her house in
the evening...and I did. But someone spoke, when mother
knew she called her a whore and never spoke to her again.
Yet my loins craved her I was a burning flame and we met in
fields and woods... till I had to go to sea as a galley boy.
When I saw again she was quite old was old, perhaps forty five,
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poem by Oskar Hansen
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