Death Before New Year Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

Death before the NEW YEAR

For a week I heard music from his house, it went on day and night, but not loud enough
to annoy anyone. Last time I saw him, he looked ravaged by
his drug addiction remembered him as a young man,
I knew he was gay which is a no; in our little village we all turned a blind eye.
His addiction had made him ugly I thought of the painting on the attic
in the book Dorian Grey, by Oscar Wilde, it was shortly
before the New Year, he was found dead in a filthy little hotel.
At fifty-two he was too young to die, but his last twenty years
had been a struggle against heroin, or some other drug,
perhaps it was for the best. That sentence was disgustingly trite,
what the hell do I know?



Death before the NEW YEAR

For a week I heard music from his house, it went on day and night, but not loud enough to annoy anyone. Last time I saw him, he looked ravaged by
his drug addiction remembered him as a young man,
I knew he was gay which is a no; in our little village, we all turned a blind eye.
His addiction had made him ugly I thought of the painting in the attic
in the book Dorian Grey, by Oscar Wilde, it was shortly
before the New Year, he was found dead in a filthy little hotel.
At fifty-two he was too young to die, but his last twenty years
had been a struggle against heroin, or some other drug,
perhaps it was for the best. That sentence was disgustingly trite,
what the hell do I know?