In Fame And Illness Poem by jan oskar hansen

Saw him at the supermarket, had seen him before
when he was a child, he bought two litre bottles
of plonk, told him to buy a better quality wine, he
didn’t listen to me. I shared a table with him and
a painter in the park, they sat there drinking didn’t
offer me any. The artist, disturbed by our silence
got up and began painting a tree, red trunk, black
leaves and something yellow in between, I thought
of the Belgian flag, had been there once, a winter,
dark place, windy, many canals, but the beer was
good. The artist, now famous, sold his tree moved
away and said deep things to magazines about art
and politics. My childhood friend died; cancer it
was said, but it could have been the wine.