A Life In Three-Lined Poetry Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

A life in tree-lined poetry

Once I was a cook on the high seas and worked long days
seven days a week; Eater and Christmas meant more work
baking cakes and baking bread.

It was not only tiring but boring to seafarers like solid
food that they are used to from home, which makes
cooking into a job of blindfolded ennui.

No wonder cooks turn to drink, the combination
of long hours, infinitely making meat cakes and mash
can send anyone into the abyss of insanity

For my next job, I learned to cook books and found
I had my latent talent how to make stories, to make
the numbers tally; I could sit in a soft chair doing this.

For a reason, lost in the fog of the past, I ended up
a counsellor, a strange occupation, telling the unlucky
not to drink, when at night enjoying a whisky or two.

I was found out and sacked; how shocked they were
the justly seniors took my license and nameplate on
the door, hounded me out of town.

There was one escape, back to sea and cooking stuff
long were the hours when not reading self-help books
until some said: "aren't you the one who got fired?