The Poetry Of...
Jan Oscar Hansen...............................
The Residue Of Tears
Kissed her dry cheeks skin as Gobi desert
in the afternoon; scented talcum powder as
fine as silky sand, my lip shrunk in dread.
To be on a schooner now, smell the ocean
and shower in sea spray. Slim, danced 10
hours a weeks, she said; twirled and fell
backward hitting the bee waxed dining table.
Lifted her up from the floor she was feather
light put her in the white coffin she kept in
the spare bedroom, but left the lid off.
An immense sorrow filled me she looked
like a sparrow that had fallen from the sky,
so I applied rouge on her cheek touched up
her lips with my gloss, and left to buy flowers.
Walked down to the docks the breeze brazed
filled my nicotine coated lungs with clean,
pure air till I saw a man his face blue floating
amongst plastic bottles and milk cartons that
had pictures of green cows, no escape from
dread. Bought flowers went back to the house
the old lady sat drinking her afternoon tea.
In the bay the schooner, Ella built in 1904,
the same age as the old lady was anchored.
They needed a cook and since I'm good at
frying eggs and boiling potatoes applied for
and got the job. Kissed her lips again they
had my gloss and cake crumbs on, put her
back in her coffin and set sail for the tropics.
Willfully Forgotten Years
Seeing the woman I had forgotten was,
as the romantic would have said:
"a heart stopping moment." A cold inner
eye said she was as old as I, but my heart
saw her as she was thirty years ago.
"Ann, my love, is it really, really you?"
No, I didn't say that, but memory came
flowing the joy of loving her the pain when
she left.
An unstoppable agony eating my mind and
made me so bereft that I momentarily lost
my dignity and I pleaded for her love.
At a distance I followed her car naturally.
It had to be an expensive one. "If she sees
me I'll talk to her." She didn't see me what
she saw was an old man, wearing a winter
coat in spring, remembering that hurt lasts
a lifetime, joy is a transitory feeling.
Strange Shore Bay
Since the crew on Wilhelmina the three mast
Schooner, can't go ashore they swig rum and
And dance a jig on her deck. The glam reaches
Far but can't be heard by man as no one lives
Along this ghostly bay which they say often
Disappears only to return as a petulant childish
God who, full of ire, destroys shore life in its
Full moon, a night that makes sailor tell lies
About women they never had.
