Jan Oskar Hansen, PT

 

 

Free Verse   When Yesterday Is Gone   I get up early in the morning to catch the first light. By noon I ask my wife, was the daylight bright? She tells me it was, it is like a big eraser is trying to rub out my past. By noon I try to remember the light on the bay of Cascais. By night fall I have forgotten it, but she tells be there were many sail ships in the inlet. When on star lit nights I stand on the terrace I think if only I could fly, but my wife tells me to come back to bed. In the morning I think of something beautiful I should have remembered.     The Failed Revolution   In my childhood town there was one neon light on top of a five storey building: “Jesus Saves.” I asked mother what Jesus saved. ”Souls,” she said without looking up, she was reading the communist manifesto, dreaming of the day when workers would take over factories  and throw the obese capitalists into prison.  She tried to emigrate, to the Soviet Union, but was turned down—she had no skills other than putting sardines into a tin. Mother made rice pudding that day and I was allowed to scrap the brown sticky residue in the pot. A famous rich capitalist is in jail, in Siberia. It is a nice place—he has internet, sits in his shirt sleeves, sends emails to friends protesting his innocence. Accused of stealing oil from his own company— I wonder how this is possible. No, not the revolution mother was dreaming about.     The Revolutionary   I met a terrorist once— He was fighting for freedom By blowing up soft targets Like you and me. Just retribution, he said So we could believe in what he did One faith, one truth.     Never Look Back   It was the poverty of vision that got to me... the drabness of moving from one home to another. I wanted sunlight, not the dim light that shines from a basement’s kitchen window… I fled...sought other shores. But I was never able to escape the ghosts of the past. As years have gone, I’m uncle to many but a father to none; the letters sent go unanswered... what am I to say as age has taken a brutal hold on my neck pressing me down to the ground. Oh, I know now I’m a coward, I shouldn’t have, fled but fought in my corner from the base of my beginning, but I didn’t have the strength. It is a sunny dawn here where I live while there is snow up north— I have betrayed my family...  I feel deep sadness but knowing my guilt  I still have no regrets; yet I hear no birdsong.     The Cobwebs of Dreams   It was a clear day…too clear I thought. Mother sat in the kitchenand sunlight made her white hair into a halo. I asked her how old she was. Ninety two, she said... I knew I was trapped in a dream as she didn’t live that long. By the slow river I saw furniture drift along. Brother said that people who lived downstream went  upstream to buy furniture...to save on transport cost they dumped the stuff into the river where relatives, downstream, picked it up. Sometimes they lost a table or a commode but that’s a risk one has to take. I knew this too was a dream... I walked along a soft road, in a forest, but something was wrong... there was a strange red light emitting from the trees... now I was trapped inside a painting by a mad Russian artist; luckily I had a flick knife. It is morning... that is I think it is...sometimes the line between reality and the subconscious merges... perhaps yesterday is today...     The New Tyranny   This dawn after rain was trumpeting its force on the old roof tiles. It ceased to a soft a soft drizzle. Yes, I know I should get up at eight steeped as I’m in a protestant work ethic, but overcome by laziness, I slept for another hour. In my drowsiness I thought how our freedom has been restricted by the internet. Our thoughts and secrets are no longer our property but shared by authorities who want to know our innermost thoughts; we are prisoners of an all embracing society that will not tolerate thoughts other than the banal comments about friends’ birthdays. What was heralded to be a great instrument of communication is spied upon by our leaders who know more about us now than the Stasi knew of the East Germans. Free speech only exists for those who have nothing to say and accept living in the land of conventions. Nothing can be nobler if we demand our right not to be censured and called seditious because we will not be trapped into trivial acceptance of perceived lies.     After Rain   The audacious sun finally shows up, and green is the winter landscape. I also see where the sun sets, just behind the old carob oak, where the almond trees first blossom. Soundly and snugly under a carpet of wild flowers the sun snoozes untill dawn. Over the easterly range, the first defense against Spanish marauders and the rain on its plain, the clouds are dark blue...perhaps more rain tomorrow? In fading light musical notes dance down a phone line, the first flirt of spring? And should it rain tomorrow, I will not be downhearted... this day will keep me warm for a week or so.     Riches   Once, into the low river where sunlight makes stones look like gold nuggets, I threw  a cheap engagement ring made of silver. I had paid plenty for it on my low wages, but compared with the river’s gold it was junk. I saw her kiss another man in a café where I couldn’t afford to take her. My misery was total and my disgrace deep... how could I be so deluded to think she would take my silver for his gold. So I threw my ring into the river— amidst the shiny stones my ring looked trite, the sliver of left over moonlight after ancient gods’ bacchanalia. And forever I will be silent...I will not speak to her about this; a young man’s heart is impossibly romantic. The river is now a road, the stones were just sunlit pebbles; amongst them, buried under layers of asphalt, is my love for her.     Yes, Even Dictators…   “You never said you loved me,” from a song? The demand to be loved, not merely liked, is a universal human claim. Even tyrants like to be loved; when they say they love the people, they may even mean it in a warped way. When they discover their subjects are feckless, their anger is malicious. To be loved makes us feel good—less cosmic less lonely—but should it be a claim, like the right to free speech and democracy? “Man the barricades comrades and demand the right to be loved.” Love is a bonus given to us by a person who should have known better, but nevertheless walks by our side despite our monstrous egos.     No Longer Circus, but Soaps   We sat on a sofa facing the TV. We are watching soaps... I feel like screaming—this is so fucking predictable! I could have written this crap, I know the beginning, the middle and the end. Our maid sits in the kitchen and screams something about a lovely woman thrown off her horse... I feel like telling her, not to worry, the woman, who fell off her horse, will survive and get her prince. The fairytales of yore and now are the same... after some tribulations, the poor guy turns out to be rich— some hidden inheritance—  Her father relents— the poor prince has stocks, shares, and nice manners. Fifty goats will be slaughtered. Animals have to pay with their lives when humanity feasts; this goes back to pre biblical times and across all cultures...so tuck it in and be quiet.     The Void   Silence is not totally quiet—it has an Om— A chant of the everlasting and soothes a restive heart. I used to be a warrior a hero of every war fought, Now I hear the Om and see moss on stones. On a painting I saw time’s little sister—she shimmered Above ground and is the air I breathe. What was important is now hollow—only beauty prevails. The everlasting is all around me as I walk on a lane of Sea sand and crushed shells, time’s little sister smiles And tells me nothingness is the highest prize.     A Cairo Street   The crack of a rifle shot... a man falls to the ground, instantly dead, whatever he is thinking of is totally eradicated. His friends try to drag him away, but a dead body is as inflexible as a bag of cement. They leave him there, on the filthy street, his open eyes mirror the terrorized sky.     Revolution   Finally, the rabbits in the woods revolted after being hunted by men with shotguns and chased into the open by ingratiating saliva dripping dogs who attacked the village at the edge of the woods. Rabbits bravely stood in front of cars, that didn’t stop, but they scared dogs into whimpering cowardice and alarmed elderly women and children who thought rabbits where docile, friendly and tasted good when cooked. The rabbits—they are really sweet rodents- had to retreat in a hail of shotgun fire, but they had won a moral victory. The hunting law has been changed—the season for killing wild things is shortened from five to four month a year.     Highlife   In my town there was only one place open after ten o’clock, a kiosk that sold hotdogs, hard boiled eggs and soft drinks. A lone circle of light where men congregated, discussing football. It is the darkness I remember the best, nights were long and few streetlights about. Shops had little to sell (there had been a war on); they were frugal with the lights. But the kiosk’s light pulled me—it gave an air of grown up adventures and possibilities, in my mind this was the height of city living… for the men too, it was the first time in five war years they could be out after dark. I often pestered mother for change so I could go there and buy a couple of hotdogs to take home after mingling with the sophisticated, absorbing their manner and air of assurance. When I came home mother had to reheat the hotdogs.     A Window into the Past   Visiting time over... mother was ill in hospital—she had been so tired lately. Nearby a small stream, an empty box of matches was my raft, rudderless, it rushed down rapids and disappeared under ground, under the town and I wondered if it reached the docks. I had bought mother a box of chocolates; in the same shop they sold oranges and but they were too expensive. But I ate most of the chocolate while listening to her instructions, to peel spuds, buy milk and a yesterday loaf (half the price), open a tin of sardines... But first I had to go down to the docks to see what ships were in and also try to find my raft. When I came home mother stood smoking in the kitchen...she had peeled the spuds. They had let her out only so she could pack her suitcase; she had to go up the mountains, where the air was pure, and be cured…and I knew why I hadn’t found my raft.     A Cairo Rose   Lily white was his shirt A red rose sprung from his chest, It grew bigger and wider, Too heavy for the man who fell into the dust; the rose liquefied. Around him an air of stillness.     Meandering   The moon tonight looks like a golden gondola sailing on a black sea only casting anchor at dawn. I remember a gondola trip in Venice... grey water, cabbage, onions and apple peels, I wished the gondolier had been quieter. I sailed across the Black Sea once, from Georgia To the Dardanelles, and the sea was frosty white. We anchored just outside Istanbul waiting for clearance, small boats came—they sold us sweet wine and liqueurs. After an endless journey on an old ship we drank too much and got sick, but for a few hours we forgot about the poverty of our wretched life. An endless voyage to Reykjavik, Iceland— the sea around the island was dark blue. But the beer there was so insipid that we had no chance to forget our misery. Moon, it has no business looking like a gondola—it is a balloon. So bring in the empty horses; suave was David Niven you couldn’t see he was acting his socks off.     Democracy Today   Freedom of speech: The poor yell into a void The rich get a TV station. Privatizations: Your county’s natural assets Given to the mighty     Senryu: The Unfeasible   Quiet despair I long for the unattainable A handful of sweets Ice cold beer A glass of blissful nectar Remembered In the cabinet A lone bottle of whisky Sadness left alone Lack of romance I’ll embrace the winter sky And get a cold sore.     Senryu   I’m not his servant But will obey my father He’s got the whip Sun rays Warm the crumbling wall Ghosts take fright On a mossy stone Minute flowers grow Old reverie Muddy rivers Flood homes built on the plains Too much rain Racism—an illness Vacates the mind of reason Poison in the eyes Time’s little sister Shimmers on summer sand Leaves no footprints     Haiku   Icy is the fjord The fluidity of blue crystals Echo of childhood     The Nordic cord Strong as freedom’s call Forgotten lullaby