War Hero Poem by jan oskar hansen

A War Hero


The big gull stood on its realm, ocean cleaned rocks
of the outer sea, snowy white chest, blue/grey wings
that spanned big as an osprey’s, yellow beak and
clear green eyes, but when a hint of red anger in them
gleamed other gulls flew clear.

When the ocean is irate and breaks over rocks it
take abode in a coastal town where it is well know
and famous, for once it shat on Adolf Hitler’s hat as
he strode from his yacht and a band of Quislings,
played Austrian oompah music

Domestic Nazis went to the shoals, tried to blow
them up, but sea was white topped, their boat
sprung a leak and they had to be rescued by local
fishermen, who were told not to speak of this affair;
an impossible request… of course.

The seagull became a symbol of resistance and
also showed how banal dictatorship can be, when
it puts a prize on a gull’s head, and hunts it with
flying machines. Vanity is silly as pride and fools
silver, fishermen and war heroes know that.