Stavanger Communist Party Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

Stavanger Communist Party

The local communist party of my youth was a fun place
they had frequent parties with music and dance and
illegal booze in the bushes, in the dark unpainted years
after the war when entertainment was tambourine and
bible thumping. My uncle spoke at meetings he painted
a picture of utopia for the workers a short working week
and jobs for the wheelchair bound, like other members he
lived in naïve cocoon that had little to do with real life.

As the country shook off the grimness of the gloomy years
there was work for all, and the party shrank in a short
time disappeared; there were so many places to dance.
I can still hear my uncle's voice talks of "the dictatorship
of the masses" equal pay for all; we are getting nearer
but there are those who try to take it away from us.