Unpainted Painting
Unpainted Painting.
I found a painting on the dump by the road, heads of many colours
seeking shelter, under a colourful umbrella, against coming storm.
It is an original painting signed and dated 2052, who threw it away?
A black fly walks across the computer screen, when I shush it away
it only indolently moves and settles on the edge of the virtual page.
I look for a newspaper to swat it the devious fly reads my thought,
take lift and disappear Into the painting. Now I can read the name:
FEMA. I got, it the date, the work is not yet made by an artist not yet
born; I’m seeing into a future and if the sad faces are anything to go
by, it doesn’t look too promising. Before the darkness swirled into
the village I put the picture back on the dump, as it wasn’t painted
yet and not for me to see. The black fly was buzzing around my head
whispering words in a in a future language I shall never comprehend
In the morning dustmen came and took away the trash.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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Odd Love Story
Fall came early that year, the north westerly blew there was sadness
in the air, I just knew something was not right. It was on a day like this
my wife said she wanted a divorce, and she had already worked out
the details of the settlement, I could keep our log cabin. She knew me
so well it was the only thing I wanted. My wife is keen athlete she
likes to run and go skiing, it was only natural that she married the man
who runs a sports shop. My exercise is to get up from my typewriter
walk into to the kitchen to make another cup of coffee.
A rare beautiful winter day, blue sky and pale sun, there was a knock
on my door, I opened saw her green Volvo disappearing down the lane;
by the door a bag of cooked food and jam. And twice a week she does
this, but now I wait till her car has disappeared. “Love and cherish...”
she is a good catholic, takes her promises seriously. In summers, she
runs past my house, looks straight ahead and I pretend not to see her,
poem by Oskar Hansen
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Brazilian Cafe
Grey Hospital and a Brazilian Café.
The hotel where I stayed served lousy coffee, insipid and milky.
I knew there was a Brazilian café nearby, on my way there walked
past the closed down city hospital. Grey walls dripping of uncured
diseases, graffiti and dead windows. Convert it into an office block,
but who wants to work there, a place haunted by cynical doctors and
indifferent nurses who stalk the halls at night waiting for their shift
to end so they can get out from this place of horror, and patients
they have lost interest in and can do nothing for. Tear it down and
throw the debris down a gully. At the Brazilian café the coffee was
strong and healthy; the staff, young, moved as dancers to the music
in the background. There is much of Africa in the Brazilian soul,
passionate, courageous; yet, sometimes, viciously moody.
The girl who served me coffee, smiled with lips and eyes, her skin
dark, glowing… fit. And the sad hospital faded into oblivion.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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Extraterrestrials?
The man, in my infancy, who said there were people
on the moon, was laughed at; he was wrong, but not
wrong in thinking there was other life forms on remote
planets. Years ago a big plane got vanished and landed
on the back of the moon where temperature is an even
22 Celsius and there were an abundance of green fruit
that looked like, bananas and nutty tasting blue grass.
Adults missing meat ate each other till there was only
one left, the pilot, and dejected jumped off the moon.
The youthful passengers and children got used to their
surroundings and could cook bananas in fifty variations.
They built caves and decorated them with chairs from
the plane and as beds they used dried banana leaves….
And as time went by the earth became a myth an idea
of paradise lost. This generation of moon dwellers wore
no clothes, what´s point? Only women, on certain dates,
wore dried green skirts. So the man who believed there
was life on the moon may be right after all.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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Shorter Days
As Days Get Shorter.
The sunny fall is now dry, hard winter
on the avenue trees stand denuded
while their offspring the leaves, rustles
up and down the street, filling up storm
drains and sighing as they dance with
a lackluster zephyr, not yet ready to
merge into dark soil; tawny and auburn,
I look at my hands, not there yet.
Few birds in trees they have gone to
Africa, which is not far from where
I live…for a bird, they spend nights in
the avenue’s trees, safer there than on
the country side; seen as vermin when
there are too many, too few and bird
lovers and other weird people, worry
if birds of prey will survive.
[...] Read more
poem by Oskar Hansen
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As Days Get Shorter
As Days Get Shorter.
The sunny fall is now dry, hard winter
on the avenue trees stand denuded
while their offspring the leaves, rustles
up and down the street, filling up storm
drains and sighing as they dance with
a lackluster zephyr, not yet ready to
merge into dark soil; tawny and auburn,
I look at my hands, not there yet.
Few birds in trees they have gone to
Africa, which is not far from where
I live…for a bird, they spend nights in
the avenue’s trees, safer there than on
the country side; seen as vermin when
there are too many, too few and bird
lovers and other weird people, worry
if birds of prey will survive.
[...] Read more
poem by Oskar Hansen
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Away From The Camera
Away From the Camera.
In the Bay of Bengal, near Tripura, a tank ship ran
aground, an old ship that had been economical for
its owner, carrying crude for a hungry west and
crewed by low paid seamen. And she was sold to
the people who would tear ships apart, like French
avant-garde butchers with hearts of frozen rocks.
Squall in the bay, the ship broke anchor and, like
a horse that seeks grassland, she sought high seas.
Alas she had oil onboard must be caught before spill
washed on sandy shore. Cowboy tugboats rode out
lassoed the old lady back to the place of destruction.
It is in the Bay of Bengal the infidel drowned Bin Laden,
in moonlight his coffin is a silvery specter in the bay.
It drifted to shores of New Jersey, on the voyage made
a devil´s pact with sandy storm; revenge for those who
dare laugh in the face of Islam. For her crew this meant
little, but pale memories of peace when dolphins played
on cobalt sea, and grown men had hearts of poetry.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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Poet Without A Pen
A Poet without a Pen
On terrace I see city’s light shine as cold pearls along the bay,
but night sentinels have a duty to shine till first light of dawn.
Clouds are pushed around but sometimes there is a gap and
moonlight shines through. In the bay four cargo ships are
anchored, their mast lights are as low hanging bright stars.
Eight o´clock, evening and cooks on each ship are standing on
deck smoke a cigarette drinking coffee, glad this day is over.
Perhaps they see what I see before going into their cabin
leafing through old newspaper trying not to think of tomorrow.
Cooks on ships are dreamers neither crew nor officers and
every day they have to try to create something new with hand
and mind, sometimes overwhelmed, and since they never have
a day off, they tend to drink too, yet always do their duty.
A cook can´t articulate his longings or has he awareness to change.
Yet he continue his lonesome, unappreciated quest, because he
is a poet without a pen.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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The Fable Of Jesus
The Fable of Jesus
Jesus was skeptical of his own tribe, as a trainee carpenter he was
lousy couldn’t even make a simple bookshelf, they kidded him for that.
Jesus took umbrage and criticized the roman clinging priests.
He took to hanging out with a group of radicals of the day and since
he was good with words he soon became their leader.
There were a few groupies circling around his association, like Magdalena,
but they were for sexual enjoyment and not taken seriously.
Being admired by his flock Jesus thought he could take on the church and
the roman establishment, like when he chased money lenders out of
the temple. He was wrong. When they mocked him and crowded him
a king, he thought the people would come to save him.
Crucified, but women came to his rescue, healed his wounds and
sent him to France, where he took the name of Pierre.
He and his mistress, the despised tart Magdalene, had seven children
and he ended his days as a much respected goldsmith.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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The Killing
The killing
A flock of white doves flew over my house, heading due east, if they were flying to
Israel fat chance, and if they landed on the Gaza strip they would end up in a pot.
Last time I saw a white dove was in 1956, when I accidently killed one, I had made
a bow and arrow and shot into the air and hit one. Our neighbour came, pulled
the arrow out of quivering bird and gave it to me, but kept the dove. The aroma of
roasted bird wafted along the street. We sat eating fried mackerel with turnips,
“why didn’t you take the bird home? ” My mother asked. “But it was white and it
might have been an angel” I said.“? Never mind the colour, we are talking about
food, ” she said. My sister went even further insisted it was Jesus in disguise, and
I had to give her my chewing gum to atone for my sin. White doves of peace with
a palm leave in their beaks, how romantic, war is undying, peace is just a breather
and festive balloons as military brass bands play.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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