The Poetry Of.
Jan Oskar Hansen..............................
The Mystic Veil
When a child, in Norway many, women wore veils
they were usually classily dressed and wore a dead
fox with glass eyes around their necks, mother said
they were rich bitches, scared me though, faces in
deep shadows they could tongue me and I wouldn't
know, or perhaps they were witches with festering
sores and a third eye planted on the forehead
For the opposite reason I feared nuns, they covered
everything but their stern, unadorned faces, eyes not
mild, but judgmental, when seeing one I was quick
to walk on the other side of the street. Yesterday
I saw a Moslem woman wearing a full veil, but her
burka was too snug around her bum- an impostor-?
Other women stopped and stared, it won't be long
now before it is the latest fashion.
The Wall.
I was involved in a fatal car crash but my soul took refuge
in a nearby stonewall, not any old wall, but one built by
the time Jesus was a toddler and roman soldiers walked
around in leather skirts. I'm now a wall and have absorbed
every stone's memory, we are one. It's ok to be wall, in
the tourist season, people come from afar to take pictures
of me, the Chinese Charge de Affairs was here, said our
wall building style is the same as in his great country, we
smiled, he's a bit of a flatterer and is looking for trade.
My days of guarding settlements and roman forts are long
since over there is a disused field behind me it hasn't been
ploughed for years, they are going to turn it into a housing
estate, it's said; can't say I like it children with spray cans
painting me into a kaleidoscope of garish colours; there is
talk of putting me indoors, that's ok when it rains, but it
will be a bit lonely I'm, after all, part of nature, guess I will
have to take my chances with the kids, see them grow up
fall in love, kiss and cuddle on the lee of my solid flank.
Four Alcoholics
Saturday afternoon in a Nordic town, buses are neatly
parked and as diesel fume slowly dissipates, a few
snowflakes fall; streetlights are on soon it will be dark
the air is cold and damp; rats are up from sewers eating
left-overs. Four men sit on a park-bench they have
been sharing a bottle of booze, they have nowhere to go
but to their "Blue Cross" lodgings, get a bed, and a bit
to eat; Sunday, with everything shut, will be a long day.
They count the change between them not enough to
buy a bottle from the man who sells booze after hour
to double the price, they stop a lone, young man, ask
him for some money, he gives them what they need,
glad they didn't ask for his wallet. They have a bottle,
the intention is to save it for tomorrow, but by the time
they reach their lodging the bottle is empty and they
are drunk, the receptionist will not let them in.
They blame each other, fight breaks out, the fuzz arrives,
arrest and throw them in the slammer. Sunday, the four
are booked, fingerprinted and let out. The church, across
the park is warm, there might even be a few pence to
be had from worshippers, they try to look middleclass,
but are stopped by the verger; told to come back next
day. Four men on a park-bench, they are thirsty, but not
lonely and that is a good thing to know.
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