when I met my father
When I met my Father
There are many cargo ships in the bay of Cascais this Monday afternoon
and I thought of my father; he too had been a seafarer.
Last time I saw him I was eighteen, sat on a bus going into town, he saw
me but I looked out of the widow pretending I didn´t see him.
When he looked straight ahead again his face was impassive but I saw
tears trickling down his chin. When the bus stopped I hurriedly left,
this old fool I thought, most likely drunk. Rain cooled my flushed face.
During the war years of 1940-45 my father sailed on ship delivering
war material to Britain and Russia and he had seen ships being hit by
torpedoes and men drown in the cold Arctic sea. When he came home
He couldn´t settle for a normal life and back then there was no help
for war damaged seamen, and many of them became drifters and only
slowly died. My father was a drunk I had seen him before sharing
a bottle of booze with his mates in the park, and I despised him and them.
No, my father never played a role in my upbringing and my childhood
was needlessly hard because of him. But today, sitting on the terrace
overlooking the blue bay, I remember his tears.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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Ship Wrecked
The ship Wreck
A sparkle, the freighter exploded and up in the air I flew. Looking down the ship
had vanished in the glitter of sunlight. Into the sea I fell, bubbles and angst,
but I saw above me a raft. The sea, calm, always is, it’s the wind that screams
in defeat as it can’t bend the sea to its will; and shallow land that tries to stop
its progress, the freedom to be itself. Night, around me danced the women
I had loved. I drank their nectar and became the strongest man on earth.
My hearing, acute, when tons of iron hit the bottom of the sea I heard screams
of suffering steel and humanity, in a common voice. I willed sea to become terra
firma, silky sand; I dragged the raft behind me like a sledge, heading for the red
mountain where sun never sets because it has no sea to cool into.
Women had disappeared into fluffy clouds and useless heavenly angels, without
their sustenance I lost my potency, and the sea flooded the land. When my raft
drifted into Sidney harbour it was New Year’s Eve, fairy light committed suicide
by jumping into dark, shark infested water. The scream of broken steel and man
never stopped ringing in my ears.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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What The Priest Said
What a Priest told me.
I was young, fourteen, late at night, I was hasting home, jumped over fences,
crossed a garden when I saw a naked woman by the fireside, wood fire casted
a warm glow on her body, washing herself with a cloth she dipped into a sink
bucket placed on a chair in front of her. She slowly cleaned her arms, neck,
breasts, legs feet and finally she washed the part where legs meet the body.
All in slow caring motion. She put a kimono on sat down and opened a book,
after a few minutes she put the book down looked out of the window, I was
petrified and hoped I looked like a bush, she smiled, to me or herself, I shall
never know. At this point I hastily left, woozy, confused and in love. Later
I saw her at the grocer’ she had bought flowers, looked up and smiled at me.
Of course I didn’t know, at the time, that she was one of Ruben’s women put
there to tempt me into a life of infidelity forever seeking perfect, chaste love
and not involved in the physical side that smells of under- arms transpiration.
If I see one of Ruben’s women, and she smiles at me I now her love is a dream
and with aching heart and regret I walk away.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost
The grass is tall now a cat with a dormouse in its
mouth is watching me, not quite an African lion
as seen on a BBC, nature program
I may go to Africa in May, Congo, might not see
an elephant or a gorilla but I’m sure to find a war
somewhere in the forest, near a diamond mine.
Here, where I live, I can take off my shoes and
walk barefoot in the grass, but my feet have been
encased in shoes so long they are European now.
So am I an African? No not now, but I used to be
in an earlier life, that’s why I call Africa my home
and tend to idolize and over romanticise the place.
Portugal is a god country to live in and it is closer to
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poem by Oskar Hansen
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Assassination?
Assassination?
The country lane I walked on twisted and turned I didn’t
know what next to see after a new bend, I like it so a straight
road, one I see till it disappears into blue yonder, is scary
fear I will not reach its end. People came walking up behind
me, I stood aside and took my cap off; it was the lady, I had
seen jogging on this road, strolling along with a tall, dark man,
in his shadow she looked timid and insignificant, with a smile
glued firmly on her red lips, this gave a hint of deep sadness,
that of one who had lost the highest office in modern time.
A step or so behind them, ambled another man, with a fun sign
on his back that read: ” We have suffered now it is our turn to
dish it out, kick me if you dare.” I heard the cough of a colt
forty-five, and the tall shadow fell to the ground, the fixed
smile stood motionless in the baffling glare of the midday sun,
the man, with amusing sign, had run into the bushes; smoke
spiralled from his hand, a cigar? Sky darkened, thousands of
war planes loaded with smart, cluster, bunker busting, stupid
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poem by Oskar Hansen
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A Weepy
A weepy movie.
I have been watching a movie on TV, a love story about a girl named Sabrina. I fall for
it every time; yes, I know the technicality of filming but still believe the story. Yes,
I know it is about upper class love, the chauffeur’s daughter, and the son of the house.
They end up in Paris, where else? Nothing mundane about the film, like, can I afford
a flight ticket to Paris? Money problem kills love. Last year my wife and I took a coach
to Paris 36 hours– we are divorced now-. We spent so much time finding a place to
eat and sleep we had little time to see the sights. Saw the Eiffel tower though, you
could build a ship with all that iron. It disturbed me, the Unknown Soldier’s grave;
eternal flame. Soldiers died for business interests and the lust for power. Wish this
was the only truth, fact is young men like killing each other, they just need someone
to say it’s legal. In Paris I read poetry in defense of the Palestinians, for an audience
of Jewish people, but since they didn’t understand Norwegian they applauded.
For a moment I was a star on the firmament of vanity. I will not be back to Paris again,
less I can afford to drink a bottle of expensive wine.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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Empires
Empires
On the ancient road I hear roman soldiers’ footsteps, all roads lead back to an empire;
and nothing has changed the poor die in the service of their masters. The Romans took
the elites sons of country they wanted to dictate sent them to Rome trained and sent
them back and they had vassal state. It didn’t always work, loyalty became resentment
and uprising, the kept kings demanded more power. The new empire is doing the same,
sends sons and daughters of the elite, in countries they want to control, to Harvard, we
get the royal household of Jordan. Sometime it backfires and we get Osama Bin Laden.
All empires must fall it’s written in the stars, their outpost Israel, is a sacrilege, losing her
humanity. I hear tired Roman soldiers marching on roads their foes will take when they
come to crush them. Iraq is a civil war waiting to happen, Afghanistan is a lost cause and
Pakistan will never submit to foreign dominance. I hear the footsteps, the new empires’
soldiers, the urban poor, have been promised glory, and shiny medals, as always they die
for a dream not theirs. The ghosts of roman soldiers marches on through the centuries,
nothing has changed in two thousand years.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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and it was Her Summer
…And It Was Her Summer
“Go back to the children’s home, she said I have no work and
can’t afford to keep you” Late June afternoon she sat on a bench
with a man I didn’t know. The man smiled I didn’t like him, but
took the coins he gave me to buy an ice –cream for; I was still
hanging about so mother got up and slapped me across the face.
”Get lost you stupid boy! ” My face was burning I threw the coins
into the lake and ran away. When I stopped running it was night
and I could see sheep in a field, I was tired and cold, thought of
seeking shelter in a little wooden church, but it smelt of fear and
I thought of ghosts, so I walked on till I came to a workman’s hut
near the road, it was easy to get in; here the smell was of coffee,
and kind men in overalls, perhaps one of them were my father?
It was morning and warm sunlight when they came, they were not
angry, but gave me milk and bread and showed me the quickest
way to get home. The sky that day was enormous and from a hill
I looked down to the town, I could see the school building it must
have been early, no children in the yard; but I just sat there and
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poem by Oskar Hansen
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A Litre Of Wine
A litre of wine
The wine in the glass is full the red liquid arches the slightest
movement and it will spill over and run down the stem like
a bleeding stomach wound trickling down a petrified leg.
I bent down and inhaled the wine no spillage and I wondered
why it is so many people, in fact more and more drink beer
that is no longer a natural brew is it because we are no longer
a part of nature and seek and feel more at ease with man made
products and we will soon have a diet that fits with the work
we are doing, say if you want a double cheeseburger with fries
you first have to work shuffling coal for twelve hours,
but if you only want to sit writing a simple poem about
the country side low fat yogurt for you; if you have written
the poem under the influence of a steak you will be censured,
made to walk in the park and tell everyone you’re a crock of
empty of gold empty of anything a modern society such as
networking banalities and get people to buy what they don’t
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poem by Oskar Hansen
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Acidic Sea
The Acidic Sea
All those nice villas along the coast are empty safe for stray cats
and those too poor to live inlands, because the sea stinks like
bouillabaisse gone off. Marine life and sea plants have died out
too much acidity caused by industrial man, and now it is too late
to clean up the mess. Fish in tanks are guarded well and so dear
that only the very rich can afford to eat, say, bacalao; we have to
eat fishcakes that consists of ninety eight percent mashed potatoes,
the rest is cod skin. Cod liver oil is the cure all medicine, it’s very
expensive and only the well off can afford to buy it, and they,
the rich live years longer than the poor. This has raised concern
and social unrest, politicians on the left, insist the poor too has
the right to be given a teaspoon full every morning; mind there is
synthetic cod liver oil on the market, but it tastes awful. Seagulls
and terns have adopted well have earth hued feathers, sit in carob
trees, sharp eyed keep and eye for scarps of food and scare tiny
tots with their inane pirate shrieks. From safe distant, when wind
is calm, and on romantic, moonlit nights, the sea looks as beautiful
as described by marine biologists in fairytale books.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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