Poetry Collection of Jan Oskar Hansen

Poetry Collection of Jan Oskar Hansen | Poem

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History Now

    The world, despite little wars, has
    never been as peaceful as it is today.
    Now a new president is sorting out
    whose the enemy and whose get
    to wear a white hat. Appealing to
    peoples baser instinct, a promise
    of less tax and an ample supply of
    cheap liquid gold. Drawbridges up
    …Fortress USA.

    Meanwhile the Palestinians keep
    on dying in an enclave only fit for
    goats. Undemocratic regimes are
    shored up as long as they have got
    what matters most- oil and vaguely
    promise orderly reform. The planet
    is coughing, so what, let's together
    float down the river of oblivion,
    the next generation isn't us.

Family Life

    I detested the smell on mother's clothes when
    she came home from late shift at the canning
    factory, brother's sweaty reek when arriving
    from the building site, sister's shop girl scent
    and father's odour when coming in after boozing
    with his mates in the basement, drinking a brew
    made of sugar, yeast, potato peel and prunes.
    My folks were at ease being working class,
    didn't dream of a better life and enjoyed Sundays.
    Their docility and acceptance made me angry,
    they feared my scalding tongue and tantrums.
    Left home early but couldn't escape their imprint
    on my mind and that's why my home stinks of
    stale tuna fish tomcat piss , cheap after shave
    lotion and empty beer bottles. Now that I'm old
    they are shadows, whispering voices, getting
    louder and keeping me awake at night; they can't
    forgive me for not loving them.

The Assessment / Epigram / Lisbon Winter Night

Hemingway

The Unanswered

An Algarvian Landscape

links

Jan Oskar Hansen "In The City"

Palestine, plus

to chapbook review

Jan reads excerts from Cracks in the Mirror on youTube

Review of Jan's book

poet Jan

Jan Oskar Hansen is Norwegian and ex-merchant navy.

his blog

to Moongate

The Assessment

My copy pen fell to the floor I bent down to pick it up
now I feel dizzy. I came to this country, decades ago
to write, many pens have fallen on the floor- although
I do not write with a pen but use a word processor.
A pen is a crutch and to make droll shapes on sheets
of paper; a thousands sheets filled with doodles while
waiting to write something sensible on the processor;
a mad publisher has shown interest in them.
Twenty years feels a very long time, twenty more and
I'll be ninety bet I will not be able to pick up a pen from
the floor then. Now I wake up in the night and a steady
hum tells me I have wasted my time scrawling, a book
of scribble how is that for an epitaph?

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Epigram

All dolls are equal, but some are

better dressed than others; yet

they all end up- utterly forlorn-

in a cardboard box, on the attic.

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Lisbon Winter Night

>From my hotel window I see, deep down
in the city's canyon, a cobble stone river
cars are moored to its banks; from under
one a cat runs across to the bins, a squeal
as it catches its wretched prey.

>From he opposite edifice a few shards
of light give succour to the dying and to
those who cannot sleep that radiance too
fades as night progresses towards dawn,
what's left is the hum of enduring silence.

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