Narrative Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

The Odd Narrative

Steamed up window my finger I paint a landscape,
Mountain, forest and a lake; the peak cries into
the lake it becomes a vast ocean,
where trees, are made into wooden rafts floats.
Midmorning, there is only an outline left of the crest,
this will happen to Himalaya,
it will be a grassland on a plateau, where horses gallop,
flying mane and all that,
since man won't be there to domesticate and make them
drag bunk beds and kitchen stoves around the pampas.

The rest of the world will have sunk into a big sea that is so still
it spends all its time mirroring the blue sky thinking it's seeing
is so deeply in love with the image,
that doesn't notice the man in a rowing boat; he's one time forgot,
he has married a big fish
which he thinks is a mermaid, every so often he puts his hand in
the sea and strokes the fish's belly: "without you, " he murmurs
"I would truly be alone."