AucklandPoetry.com presents Poet Resident JAN OSKAR HANSEN on http://OSKAR.AUCKLANDPOETRY.COM

Monday, June 15, 2009

summer precipitation

Summer Precipitation


The cup of old sadness is full; there is little I want to
know, the banal pilfering of politicians stirs me not
into moral ire, they did what people try doing daily
if they can, small time thieving we understand and
therefore can be virtuous about it, while big banks
crimes are too complex and are quickly forgotten.
Summer rain the earth smells of freshly dug graves,
don’t pick the flowers in the glade though, they are
for June weddings and not to be wasted on old men’s
graves. Spill not, drink your hemlock; get up walk in
the rain listen how nature sings and greet s you, all
while you remember a June bride gone. The nymph
had blond hair and green eyes, red lips that tasted of
rose’s dew, till bad magic turned her into a housewife.

failed coup

Failed Coup

The rabbit, a man scared off the glade on his morning walk,
attacked and tickled him to death. Their leader shouted:
”Today, the forest tomorrow the world, we are not scared
by man or beast anymore. Flushed by success the leader
ordered a morning raid on the nearest village, he wouldn’t
listen to wiser rabbits that didn’t think it was a good idea.
It was a bloodbath, dogs are not ticklish nor cars or sturdy
farmers with shotguns, the rabbits’ leader ordered retreat
left his fallen comrades behind and the village feasted.
Deflated the rabbits met in the glade where a noble rabbit
of the famed Leporidae family explained that being scared is
not cowardice but survival technique it allows them to live
and breed. “We are not cowards, but gregarious burrowing
mammals” became a new slogan; soon the forest was full of
happy rabbits and sweet bunnies that quickly run off when
hearing man or barking dog, and live to breed another day

june picture

June Picture

In the enchanted dell, where grass is forever green,
I saw a carpet of summer birds, yellow as real butter
before it was made low fat to suit a slimming fad.
They took off, dispersed flew slowly on silent wings;
amongst thorny bushes that are seven hued green,
waiting for a lumbering troll to pass.

Last time I saw a yellow summer bird, it was sallow,
late September it had lived too long, sat on the sill
rain fell and it as soaked; opened the window to let
it in, could sit by the fire till spring. Too late, in my
hand it turned into fluff, blew dust off my hand and
I saw each particle disperse and fly on silent wings.

Butterfly (summer bird.)

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

stygian rhapsody

Stygian Rhapsody

It struck me late at night that I could not remember
how my house looked like inside, and if I didn’t, how
could I find my way to the loo? But I could recall
the inside of every other house I had lived in, opened
doors and was met with intimacy, but the last door
I opened led nowhere; saw a blank screen that had
yet to be written on. I opened my eyes the darkness
undulated with a tiny ball of light, residue of the day
gone by. I tried to get up, but my lethargy was so
immense I could not move, feared I had had a stroke.

Sweat ran down my forehead across my mouth I felt
as I was going to drown and was ready to confess to
anything. Yes, sir I killed them all. Finally I was able to
move an arm; flex my fingers, and life seeped back
into my body. I got out of bed, but since I didn’t know
the inside of my house I collided with the wall and fell
back into bed again. I didn’t want to open my eyes but
had to if I was going to conquer my fear of darkness;
reluctantly I opened them again dawn had crept in and
I heard bird song there had been a stay of execution.

Monday, June 08, 2009

the amazement

The Amazement

The track I walked, in the thorny landscape, was full of loose
stones that kept coming up from ground trying to trip me up,
where the track narrowed amongst unkempt trees, boughs
tried to push me over, and in the undergrowth I heard snarls
of animals too vicious and hideous too appear in the flesh.
Overcast day and the wind that blew had ice on its breaths,
I shivered alone in the enmity of a landscape gone feral.

But I staggered on unwilling to give into phobias and fear,
suddenly stones went subversive and the path was soft as
a carpet, unseen animals disappeared and trees welcomed
me with fluttering leaves; even a love hungry zephyr
whispered sweet words. In a shimmering glade- smooth as
a rich man’s lawn- a plum tree, full of juicy fruit, I picked and
ate some; they tasted of magic and sweet marvel.

Dizzy with pleasure I sat on a stone, formed by ten million
years of rain, like a throne, saw fauns dance to Pan’s flute and
swim with sunrays and moon waves that hadn’t made it home
and had to wait for night, and mother moon to come pick them
up. Fell asleep when I woke up a boar, with her seven piglets,
drank water by the lake’s far shore. White clouds on blue, time
to go home and remember not speak of this to anyone.

a democratically elected dictator

A democratically elected dictator

He’s a modern democratic dictator he quells dissent
not by sending in the army but by dispensing cash
and corrupting his adversaries to death.
He is a seducer of men, who wish they were like him,
money to spend, facelift and an orgy of women,
adolescent they dream and let him corrupt them.
I see his face a clowns grinning mask, his eyes partly
hidden in excess skin the surgeon’s knife has yet to
remove, and behind the mask there is another one.
and another, a Russian doll of masks than ends in nothing.
This man has no soul and he thinks he is going to
live forever with his new hair, but his heart is seventy
and more years. This great Mediterranean country has
lapsed into utter vulgarity, this country of elegance and
style, pasta and parmesan, how could it come to this?

Saturday, June 06, 2009

real art

Real Art

I woke up a blue neon light outside my hotel room
kept lightning up my space, I looked out and saw
a man in a cafe sitting by the counter eating a burger,
he had hat on and looked ca 1948.


Knew I was in an Edward Hopper painting but didn’t
want to be a part of his bleak cityscape of lone men
who live in cheap hotels and drink coffee in a cafe,
whose clientele are lost soul like me.


I splashed water in my face adjusted my tie put my
hat on and walked out, a cab drove by looking for
a fare, opened the cafe’s door, the man with hat had
gone, I drank coffee and ate a doughnut.

Friday, June 05, 2009

The Obama Speech

The Obama Speech


The great orator spoke in Cairo, told those
who had lost their land to stop warring and
seek a peaceful solution.

He told those who had done all the stealing,
from the bereft, to stop taking more and be
a bit more helpful.

Yes, our Obama knows how to do the talking,
but I don’t think the land grabbers give any of
it back to those they took if from.

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

transformation

The Transformation

She used to brush natural curls out of her hair
wanted it to be straight and in a pony tail,
stayed out of the midday sun, bad for the skin,
she said fighting an impossible and tiring battle
against nature.

But all this has changed now, her hair is curly
she goes with me to the beach, my tan is envious
of hers. Obama is a hero, because she no longer
has to hide in the shadow of white pretence and
can be her lovely self.

make-believe

Make-believe


The olive tree had three trunks Siamese triplets?
It was old and gnarled, some of its branches had
no leaves and it was lost in an abstract cosmic
dream and not aware of its surround; I touched
the perennial and thus gave it soul.

A mild breeze blew, a fluttering of leaves and
the three could see the blue sky where a silvery
bird flew northward glinting in the sun. It could
also see how cute other trees looked, aware how
plain it was dawn dew dripped from leaves.

wished it could be a cosmic dream again and
no sense of time and place. But look, its tears
had fertilised the ground and around its trunk
flowers so rare they had still to get a Latin name,
sprung up from red/rusty soil.

They are my creation I have created beauty out
of my distress, the plant whispered as in awe.
My children, must shade them from the hot sun
and bitter winter rain. Vanity be gone, and see,
on its naked branches green leaves grew,

Eternal screen

Eternal Screen



It`s too hot to go for a walk, I stare at a blank screen
Its afternoon, in my cabin and silence is intrusive,
a low one toned hum of doom.

Intense white screen, but when looking closer I see
myriads of tiny black squares, a mask that will not
let go of its dark secret.

I try to rip it open with a volley of words, but they
bunch back, and reduced to banality of what have
been overstated a million times.

Exhausted I erase words send them into the bleak
world of Delete, a place where surplus words and
emails are sent to shuffle in obliquity.

I read the news 228 people have fallen into the sea,
hasty words fell out of them too and into silence.
Cooling breeze, must get out and hear the day sing.

nice guy

Mr. Nice Guy


Saw her stacking shelves at the supermarket, my instinct
was to take her in my arms, away from all this, and ask
her marry me. But I remembered we had been married
before, how she had wanted a divorce because I had no
ambition, a mere short order cook, and how the court
secretly had sided with her, and treated me with dislike,
and yes, I had to leave out flat. Later she married a man
who sold Mercedes cars, he wore a suit to work and had
shiny fingernails, but he used too much au de cologne of
the type who doesn’t bath often and rarely changes his
underwear. He stole money from a the till and ended up
in prison, and me? I’m a manager now of a burger bar,
perhaps I should offer her a job for all time sake?
No, that would be rubbing it in, so let her stack shelves.

haiku

Haiku

Sunset
Empty asphalt road
Black mamba



Haiku

Lyrical silence
In our domestic landscape
Rabbits don’t cry.



Haiku (after a painting)

Brown city puddle
Mirrors an abject Sunday sky
Stray dog sees itself

too late

Too Late For Love

Knock on my door, she stood there, the woman
who had caused me untold sorrow, to tell me of
her love for me.

After all this years, lone night and despair, now
that love is a tiresome cliché, how pathetic she
looked in her red raincoat.

I closed the door, walked into my enchanted
garden, where yesterday appears in soft focus,
and played Sibelius for my pet rabbits.

poet laureate

Poet Laureate

I’m back on a trail I used to walk thirty years ago,
now I use a cane and have no dog to keep me company.
The trail is still used by sheep, droppings on ground and
wool on bushes, and I’m not a pathfinder. So Ann Duffy is
a poet laureate, and she also has a living room full of pillows,
I read; I sent her a poem once, so now I can boast that
I have been rejected by a poet laureate.

Thirty years of refutations, and now I’m as old as
the great, still living Irish poet, I ought to be more
humble and take up golf, tried it once it was so boring
that I undressed, it was a hot day, and I swam in a lake
near hole nine and was banned for life, which was
meaningless since I wasn’t a member, too expensive,
but had climbed over a fence to get in.

A tiny rabbit on the track, it looks confused I pick it
up it is incredible beautiful, can’t take it home though,
put it under a bush and hope it finds its own lair.
I look up to the sky the noon sun is glaring at me
as poetic carrions circle low looking for a chair, in
the academic glade, to sit on. Time for lunch so I leave
this thorny landscape to its own lyrical silence.

Monday, May 25, 2009

failed musician

Failed Musician?

My uncle died, he was on holiday in Piraeus when a pig fell off
a balcony, he left a piano and since his wife didn’t want it in her
house, mother took it, only because it would lend an impression
of high culture, and no one else in our neighbourhood had a piano.
I played on it day and night, picked up tunes on radio and played
them on the piano; people where impressed, mother too, but she
needed her rest worked long hours at a canning factory; one day,
coming home from school, a big empty space, I cried mother gave
me Danish pastry, they were a day old but still tasty. I’m glad she
sold the piano, though I might have ended up a restaurant pianist
driving from town to town playing evergreens as background music
for bored diners

tre talk

Tree Talk.



Tomorrow, Monday I will go for a long walk in
the bush landscape, so dense that if a boy gets
lost he can disappear forever.

I like Mondays weekend is restrictive walking
about in the boredom of no work, I used to milk
cows, they do not wait for Mondays.

I have many friends in facebook, they send me
picture of themselves playing guitar or football,
and I have no idea who they are.

It’s important to have many friends, something to
do with networking, but I rather have few friends
I can just talk to without preconception.

I hope for rain tomorrow I like sauntering in
the rain, the earth smells good after a good soaking
and makes the old landscape look new

Once I wanted to be a poet, an oak was a tree to
wax lyrical about; now perennials are friends
that kids me about my old passion.

Don’t overdo it I tell them, I might just find
the words which describe you so well that people
will come; chop you down to preserve you.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Camera Angle

We have
been
to Rome,
look here’s
a photo of
St. Petersburg’s
square.
Isn’t that’s
in Russia?
Is it?
Sorry,
we have
travelled
all over
Europe
been so
busy taking
pictures,
never had
time
to see
a thing.

4 senryu

Senryu


Stunning was sunset
But they hadn’t brought a camera
So it didn’t exist



Senryu

Beautiful horses
Cameras clicked like rainstorm
No one saw the day



Senryu

Busy taken photos
I’ll have to see what I saw
When coming home



Senryu

Barefoot on the lawn
We danced with dawn’s shy light
No photo needed.

the nap

The Nap


It’s time you wake up. I have slept long dreaming.
Yes, you have been sleeping too long most of your
life has passed by and you know little of this world,
how it works, not like your talk of equality which
cannot exist other than as cosmetics the icing on
the cake called democracy.

You must wake up now I don’t want you to go to
your grave a fool who thinks animal rights is a big
deal; yet eating beef; these obsessions with rights
belong to the well off middle class who can afford to
eat expensive no meat food, and too dense to know
that if you are poor, you eat cheap burgers

Wake up sentimental dreams, do become a man
your age, your mother has died and so has your dog,
tears are misplaced in the cold light of truth, so come
now you are not a boy, life is not fake, poetry made
to make you maudlin and forgiving; I want to die
bravely like Saddam Hussein did.

Wake up now do not pretend to be asleep to avoid
the final truth which is what you long have know
to be true, your mother knew that and on her death
bed refused to play the conventional game of tearful
farewells they thought she was cold, but she had
nothing to regret, she lived life her way, so you can do.

No, no. no for you who read this I want a beautiful
death with candlelight on my side, not for me
the truth of sobriety, what so wrong with a little show
flowers and moist eyes. a mahogany coffin is much
classier that one made of cardboard, style, means
a lot to me, I was never an emotionally sober man.