Jan Oskar Hansen Poems

The best of years

in a side room where things are put to be used later but never will
there is an old "brother" typewriter gathering dust, bought a day
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Rainbow alliance

On a barbed wire fence between Chile and Argentine
hangs thousands of plastic bags, some of the bags from top shops
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I remember Laika

The warm sun and wind keep winter at bay
but it is time to say goodbye to Laika, the dog
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When the time was a trial

Woke up, the bedroom was cold under the duvet snugness
I burrowed deeper enjoying the freedom of sleeping late.
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The division

Here in this landscape of bushes and crippled trees
the grotesque peace of daylight ghosts, grey boughs
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The song of resignation

Memories are not crystal clear, a broken mirror on which the sun shines
The residue of the imagined, what ensued or will happen of equal interest
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The ship of ages
It was a hot afternoon when the big bulk carrier left a harbour
at the coast of Bengal bound for Sidney (Australia)
with a cargo of scrap iron from ships that once had ploughed
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The boy on the bridge.

At the hospital, I woke up in the night
got up, walked into a hall I didn't recognize
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The boy on the bridge.

At the hospital, I woke up in the night
got up, walked into a hall I didn't recognize
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Personified evil


I feel repulsed when he is near; I ought to have compassion
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