The Drinker Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

The ex-drinker

He had stopped drinking looked remarkable well
his wife was proud of him, less so his friends who never saw him in the bar.
When one of his friends met him in the street his manners were formal.
Promoted at work he bought a new car, his was wife was gratified and so was his family.
They found him hanged in the shed his calm had been a deep depression,
Why did this man who had everything to live for top himself?
Not easy to say, because no one had asked him but taken him for granted
that he was a happy man.
The role he played as a middle-class man in a suit was painful,
he liked drinking wine making him dream, dreams he wrote down.
When he began a sober life, his wife threw his dreams into the fire.