Jan Oskar Hansen, PL

 

 

Tanka   Look Back in Sadness   Bundle of photos Face down in a cigar box Family and friends From a time that is a dream Fading into eternity Mostly black & white How young my parents looked Now I’m the oldest Siblings faded fast away As I sailed many seas Non returnable Past’s gate is firmly padlocked Wait in no mans land Know there is no remedy The past really is a dream.     Tanka   I found in the dell Left over spots of summer light And since it was fall I picked a few to take home The rest for hares in their den     The train into town Is a reading group Eyes are glued to books When a drunk enters and sings Eyes burn holes in books     Tanka   Wedding Party   Sailing down night Seine Champagne brut and goose liver The Eiffel Tower Dressed in bright coloured charms Looked like a demi monde When the barge banked I gave Seine the bird’s liver Peed in the river Studied the sliver of moon Dreaming of ice cold lager Paris’s night streets September mild and at ease Bars and bistros shut The worthless slept in doorways And I thought of Edit Piaf     Three Tanka on a String   Translate Moor poems From Portuguese to English And hear the murmur, An echo of poets’ songs Going back a thousand years. Andalusia, Once an Arabic province Poets once lived there Sat dreaming in lush gardens Writing verses of lost love Andalusia, Christians marched Sun shone on bloodied swords Moslem’s peaceful rule vanished But poets’ verses live on

 

Read Additional Poems by Jan Oskar Hansen   Free Verse—Inconsequent Calamity Haiku