Gratuitous Violence Poem by jan oskar hansen

Gratuitous Violence

A vast plateau somewhere in the middle a lone oak,
perhaps a lone survivor of a time when this highland
was a gigantic forest. It wasn’t a nice, tall tree, no not
at all, it was nobly, stubby and bent by age, yet it was
there and today it was giving shade to a man who was
crossing the plateau on foot, this for the simple reason
that he couldn’t afford to buy a horse nor a mule. From
the horizon, shimmering at first, riders, cow hands who
spent weeks in the saddle looking for lost cattle, which
must be one of the most boring jobs man has to endure,
and seeing the lone man they decided he was a thief and
hung him on the old tree. And as life seeped out of his
struggling body, the dance of death relieved their ennui;
then they rode on, they were not men of deep thoughts.
When night fell they made a fire, ate beans, drank coffee,
farted loudly, laughed and went soundly to sleep