Ratcatcher Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

Ratcatcher
I feel repulsed when he is near I ought to have
compassion for this cripple a twisted foot and
an arm that does not function right a beggar with
scabby skin eyes as black as looking into the dark
side of a wishing star. This is not a man you
can be nice to the more you give him the more he
hates you and wishes you an early death.
His diversion is to follow funeral processions but
not into the cemetery no one wants him there
I have wondered why I hate this man so much
it must have had a background of my childhood
and I found it. After the war in Norway there was
some hunger in the land but I had noticed at
the gymnasium where the children of the middle
classes went to become our future suits, a concrete
box for trash and unopened parcels of lunch food.
But I had to be quick rats knew it too had a parcel
in my hand when a rat jumped up tried to grab it
and its eyes shone of loathing it hated me for being
human just like the cripple who dislike humanity he
blames for his perpetual hardship. In the knowledge
he will hate me more I now give him a shilling or two,
this dirty little man who never takes a bat has a mother
denying she gave birth to this satanic being, but I fear
him too, four black horses and he, the only mourner.