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Palestine sorrow poem

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Jan Oskar Hansen
Palestine.

I sit in my kitchen the wall clock

Ticks ten past seven evening time.

I feel at ease and doves of peace

Cross a distant sky.

The unchanging hum of the fridge

Accentuates my inner harmony,

Perhaps there will be peace too in

Palestine where a child, newly born,

Died in a senseless war and became

A bitter memory long before she

Had a memory herself.

" We're so very sorry, we apologise,

But we have the right to defend our

Settlers of this land."

…And from the dispossessed, a cry

Of revenge echoes through ravaged

Streets.

I sit in my kitchen and the fridge

Hums a lullaby of everlasting sorrow.

------------------------------------------------

Sweet Dreams?

Dreamed of you last night, the ease

of our embrace, not wanting to break

free, or be alone, the dream ended

as it began us entwined, in the grip

of eternity; woke up to a calm

bedroom and your vanishing smile.

My wife breathed evenly beside

me the pain of lost love and

the sadness of not loving her,

the way I still adore you, kept me

trapped in a melancholic

mood till released by a new day.

------------------------------------------

On Getting Old.

It's a strange sensation, being sixty.

Feel as I have won a battle

struggling up a mountain of years,

Now that I've captured the high

Grounds I can look back and smile

sans regrets.

Look ahead and see a new

beginning, 'cause I now that I'll be

a flower on an almond tree.

--------------------------------------------------------------

The Real Meeting.

We sat in a circle fourteen of us,

pointing knees at each other, drinking

coffee and trying to look relaxed.

Sweaty palms discretely dried on

trousers leg

One of the six women in the group

began talking - women are better at

airing their feelings than men- she

went on, a great length, about a life

of endless cocktail parties around

a swimming pool, posh wine in

expensive restaurant, of which I knew

nothing; fiddled with a lighter,

a sign on the wall read NO SMOKING.

Then the other five spoke in turn,

they all seem to have sprung from

the same glamorous background.

Ten minutes left when the chair asked

if any of the men had anything to say,

we mumbled something about feeling

fine; a short prayer, meeting over and

could go outside lit a fag and the real

meeting began.

-------------------------------------

The Lost and Forgotten

Working Class Generation.

We who left school in 1968 without

Honours and degrees, had dreams when

We filled factories and building sites

With youthful laughter which soon

Stopped when run over by the juggernaut

Of life, marriage and a high rise flat.

Later when work dried up, no skills no

Education and too old for a new job,

Divorce, queuing at the dole a flight

Into booze, walking the streets of rue,

Fuck it all and waiting for tomorrow.

Lady of Mercy, only one dream left,

That of coming up on the pool, quid's

In, a round of drinks for the mates in

The pub and self-respect; we know it

Won't happen but dream we must, or

Be flotsam in streets of regrets where

It's always gloomy and eyes have lost

The sheen of hope.


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