Saragossa Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

Saragossa Sonnet
There is a place in the mid-Atlantic an island made of sea tare
and the mist never lifts sea and storm avoid this island
that in the middle has a pyre that must be kept alive and old men
sit cross-legged around the pyre and feed it dry bones
of sailors who have sought shelter but end up having their throats slit
hung up like stock-fish to dry on the eastern side of the island.
They never talk about this but it is well known that a salted thigh
bone lasts a week and is delicious with boiled sea-tare.

You can`t see the people who live there clearly they are sons
of mist and fog an unholy alliance sex without pleasure, but they
must go on the pyre must be fed, if not the sun will break through
and they and their home will disappear as it never existed