Auckland Poetry.com

Television

My sister’s was the first in our street to buy TV,
an ugly, shiny mahogany box in the corner, and
since it was early afternoon and no program on,
stood there blinking as having dust in its eye.

Monday, film night on TV, the whole family
was there and neighbours too. Curtains drawn,
even though it was summer and still daylight, we
sat in darkness, in silence caused by our awe.

A Bergman movie, early TV in Norway tended
to take itself serious. I remember the whiteness
of the screen and how it reflected on the faces of
an enchanted audience.

Glistening cars in the rain, where her house once
stood there is now a parking lot; I’m the only one
alive, but every face, that evening, is etched on my
mind. Glass clear in black & white

Birthday

In the doorway of
a restaurant
music plays behind me,
dancers move to
a Finnish tango.

Glitter on the ceiling,
happy faces,
a few drinks more and
wrong words uttered,
steel blades glint in
the knuckled hands of my
dysfunctional relatives.

The Heat Before The Rain.

The blue bird that flew over the houses had wings that
cast shadows in the olive grove, the docile mule bolted
kicked over the bucket of water, I had carried from
the well, it jumped over a stone fence. Didn’t make it fell
broke a leg. I called my neighbour he likes to kill things, something unresolved, I gather, from his sad childhood.
All that blood a small river trickled and sank into parched
ground, where autumnal flowers sprung up and hid
the dead body in an orgy of colours, that got brighter and
brighter when feasting on decay till they exploded into
a shower of rainbows which attracted dark clouds, and it
rained; huge drops- bigger then a crocodile’s- tears.
Next day the mule grazed as before, docile as nothing had happened, but under an olive tree I found a knife with dry
blood on, and my neighbour was yonder trimming almond
trees that now have brown leaves and are full of nuts.

Inconsequent Calamity.

Men in suits carrying cardboard boxes out of a bankrupt
finance house, it isn’t money they carry out but private
belongings, picture of wife and kids and executive toys,
so what do I care? In the basement where there are no
gleaming windows and walls are cement grey, damp and
unadorned, the janitor sits, he lives from one pay check to
the next, won’t be paid this week though;

maybe he should join the navy and see the world, but at
sixty five it isn’t a wise thing to do. But he has, unlike
the suits upstairs, been unemployed before, he can, if he
must, sweep the streets of New York. The TV’s glare and
sympathy is not on him, the world of middle class men
worries about their own future not the janitor’s or his son
who is on his third tour of duty in Iraq.

Look back in Sadness.
(Written as Tanka)

Bundle of photos
Face down in a cigar box
Family and friends
From a time that is a dream
Fading into eternity

Mostly black & white
How young my parents looked
Now I’m the oldest
Siblings faded fast away
As I sailed many seas

Non returnable
Past’s gate is firmly padlocked
Wait in no mans land
Know there is no remedy
The past really is a dream.

US Soldiers.

Full of propaganda and democratic zeal
the US soldiers came to Iraq; five years
later they now know there is no “Mission
Accomplished.” The soldiers have grown
up and no longer believe in this war, they
now call useless, mockingly laugh when
politicians speak of winning.

Good, working-class kids, manipulated
and lied to, from small towns and rural
communities, they are true Americans
who love their country, I salute them and
hope their leaders will think well before
asking them to fight, bleed and die for yet
another useless war.

Diet Business

Chocolate that slims, on bar substitute a snack
between meals, and it will not make you fat.
Ninety calories a bar; the wrapper has a silhouette
of a slim person stretching upwards… to heaven?

And she is slim as an angel, for seraphs it is easy
they don’t eat, never hungry, no need for food
which must make their days with only harp music?
to break the tedium of gossiping about the boss.

Snacked five times to day it hasn’t made me thin
my greed is for all to see. From my window I can
see into a café people there drink cold beer, they
are not fat so beer is a dieters dream… lots of it.

(Wedding Party)

Sailing down night Seine
Champagne brut and goose liver
The Eiffel Tower
Dressed in bright coloured charms
Looked like a demi monde

When the barge banked
I gave Seine the bird’s liver
Peed in the river
Studied the sliver of moon
Dreaming of ice cold lager

Paris’s night streets
September mild and at ease
Bars and bistros shut
The worthless slept in doorways
And I thought of Edit Piaf

Haiku

Misty night seeps down
Melancholic September
Averse sky pain for the sun

Haiku

Green moss on wet wall
The northwesterly blows rain
Normal October

Haiku

Parasols seek shelter
Courageous are umbrellas
Joust November storms

Haiku

Festive shop windows
Preen and vie for customers
Long after closing time

Haiku

Fire-works on night sky
Cannot vie with shooting stars
Quarter past twelve

JAN OSKAR HANSEN

HOMECOMING…Prose, Poetry, Senryu

By a Norwegian sailor - stunning, candid reflections of a life on sea and land.

Published by Cyberwit.net, 2007, ISBN 978-81-8253-121-5, First Edition, 140 pages, paperback, $15,00.

HOMECOMING is the third one of a triptych of poems: End Of A Voyage, Homeward Bound, Homecoming.

Hansen takes us on an unforgettable journey through his life as a high seas roller. An adventure of brilliant insights. His love, respect and understanding of both nature and humanity with all its foibles. He shocks us into another world with humour and pathos. All masterfully written in prose, poetry and senryu of literary signifance.

Jan Oskar Hansen makes us his shipmate and companion on a journey of a lifetime where we experience through his writing, each powerful, immediate, enlightening observations. His fresh individuality leads us to worlds of wonder, delights us in earthy pleasures with a philosophical twist. We become part of the tapestry he has woven of his multifaceted experiences.

We feel his emotions and passion for the written word as he witnesses many cultures, learns new languages and grows his imagination which is at once ‘dazzling’, thought provoking, candid, richly spiced with intimacy, dream, reality and vast visual vistas of profound awareness of nature in all its vitality.

In conclusion, here is an example of what you will find in HOMECOMING, Jan Oskar Hansen’s most recent brilliant achievement.

THE OLD TART

She’s and old tramp ship now, can’t afford to hire proper crew,
only harbour dregs, to take her to the next port. For some of us she’s home we try to keep her afloat a lick of paint here and there when it can be bought cheap or stolen from a warehouse, that’s getting hard now that all cargo are shipped by containers, locked and sealed. She was riding yellow swells, off Hock van Holland, when news come she’s to be sold as scrap iron the dregs are glad to be ashore bellies full of rum king. For us who loved the old lady it’s sad day, for us she will be the last ship, we know well that we don’t fit the new merchant navy regime, roll on roll off no time for poker and a little whisky.

SENRYU

The angry ocean
Left its irate foam behind
In secret coves

LOVES LAMENT

In the morning breeze I can hear you voice
softly calling my name
in the haze I can see
the contours of you face

In the meadow’s stream
I hear you laughter and
the water in the well is as clear as your tears
the day you said farewell

All in nature reminds me of you,
transient our love, like the flowering almond tree;
beauty never lasts and it was yesteryear.

HAPPY ENDING?

Love is overrated
The cynical sardonically say
But it keeps us sane

Literary review (2008) by Barbara Elizabeth Mercer, Author, Poet, Visual Artist (Canada) based upon ‘Homecoming’, published by cyberwit.net, 2007, ISBN978-81-8253-121-15 First Edition, 140 Pages, CAN$15.00

JAN OSKAR HANSEN (Portugal). His poems have been published in 20 literary magazines worldwide, including:
Hudson Review, USA, Skyline, USA, Skald, Wales, La rue Bella, England, The Bards, England, War is a dangerous place, England, The Black Mountain Review, Ireland, ARS Poetica India, India, Braquemard, England, Firefly Magazine, USA, Pphoo, India, Taj Mahal Review, India, Remark Magazine, USA, Journal of Anglo-Scandinavian Poetry, England.

His poems appear in many anthologies. Collections ‘Letters from Portugal’ (bewrite books) Bristol, ‘La Strada’ Lapwing Publishers), Belfast, ‘End of Voyage’ (WFP New York), ‘Marilyn Monroe Remembered’ Erbacce Press, Liverpool, ‘The Fairground’ Ranch, India (out of print now).

BARBARA ELIZABETH MERCER (CANADA) Poet, Visual Artist, Author of 4 books of poetry published by Cyberwit,net (India), SECRETS, 2008, LEGACY, 2007, SELF PORTRAIT, 2006, MYSTIC WILLS, 2005. Co-author with Steve Chering, London, UK, book of poetry WHEN POETS COLLIDE, Pub. Lulu,com, USA, Her paintings, in Public Collections: University of Toronto Art Centre, Imperial Oil, Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, Canada. Many international private collections.

Haiku

The vanishing act
Summer leaves the verandah
Autumn light enters

Haiku

Deepening shadows
Fallen leaves on the terrace
Time for reflections

Haiku

A summer has gone
The breeze has a chill within
Will we meet next year?

Machination

In my vale I hear the echo of combat,
bullets targeted forward fired by lucky
warriors who kill civilians who, with
their chattel, obscure the long view.

The right place, wrong time, blood and
bodies under canvas, tears; pledge of
vengeance. Death is clean and nattily
dressed, sport sunglasses day and night.

The Room

The room on the attic had a bed, a commode,
bare floorboards on which dust danced as on
command, light came from a loft window.

The murmur I had stopped, the room waited
for my next move, I looked around nothing
here to bother about and closed the door.

My uncle lived here, he only left his room and
came down for his meals, when he didn’t
vanish for weeks “The Drink, mother said.

One day he didn’t return, after a year mother
went to the police and reported him missing,
after that no one mentioned him again.

I only remembered him now that I was selling
the house and looked around for something
of worth to take with me.

I opened the door again, and dust danced, on
the commode a small book, poetry written by
himself, odd no one had told me that.

A man, had written of the wonders he had seen,
landscape and seascape coloured by his mind,
the forgotten had sprung back to life.

I sat on his bed and read, till daylight faded and
it was night, looked out of the window and saw
what he had seen, the beauty and his loneliness.

The room was silent now it didn’t need to sing,
or whisper its sorrow. I had heard his song and
will carry his voice into the future.

Brides.

Silk worms spewed me a suit fit for a king
Wore it at a wedding where I coveted
Another man’s bride

The worms came, ate my fine suit, they
Had found me unworthy; naked walked
through the park of autumnal leaves.

By daybreak I sat on a stone by the sea
And didn’t hear the cockerel crew, a mermaid
Beckoned for me to join her.

We swam to an island not marked by maps
In the bay I saw my old schooner called May,
De-rigged now and unable to sail

Cured of my vanity, worms spewed me
Another fine suit; by not looking back I walked
On water to a wedding in Paris.

Addiction

Looking out of the window, in the doctor’s
waiting room, I saw his receptionist who
had gone outside for a smoke, she wore
black underwear under a white nylon dress
which is a faux pas, but I couldn’t give
a damn it was the way she inhaled filling
her lungs with aromatic tobacco that filled
me with uncontrollable lust, mouth open
I swooned. The receptionist, a woman of
forty-five who- in her attempt not to look
middle aged- had slimmed herself bony,
turned, saw my carnality, shuddered, and
quickly she killed her cigarette and my
desire with a heel of steal.

Tanka

Translate Moor poems
From Portuguese to English
And hear the murmur,
An echo of poets’ songs
Going back a thousand years.

Tanka

Andalusia,
Once an Arabic province
Poets once lived there
Sat dreaming in lush gardens
Writing verses of lost love

Tanka

Andalusia,
Christians marched
Sun shone on bloodied swords
Moslem’s peaceful rule vanished
But poets’ verses live on

The Breath.

Easily in and out you breathe, with lungs
unsullied by cigarette smoke, siesta nap
a lazy Sunday on afternoon when flowers
wilt and sky is recklessly nude

Breathtaking, the silence, if you should
stop; I would fall down a chasm of pale
rainbows, stillborn moons, rusty stars
where words of love are unheard of.

Inhale and exhale my dear, snore too if
you must, but don’t leave me alone in
city parks where old men sit spit and tell
passersby how old they are.

Double Tanka

If, say… Christ returns
Bearded and in white burnoose
Will he be seized?
And sent to Guantanamo
If he looks like Bin Laden

Water tortured
Made confess odious crimes
He is innocent of
Or just say; “not again dad”
And magically disappear.

Still Life.

Mother used to have on the wall, a picture
of a dead boy in his coffin, surrounded by
flowers, candles and silence.

I often stared hard at the picture, willing
the boy to open his eyes, he never obliged
me, but came alive in my dreams.

The name of the boy’s mother was Olga she
used to visit us till mother and her fell out,
mother thought it rude to remove the picture.

Years went by, my brother died and mother
took the picture down, but it was still there,
a square less faded than the rest of the wall.

The Doubt

Snow fell between us, more and more,
I couldn’t see you, blizzard in my hearts;
when the weather cleared the landscape
was white with hares and fox tracks.
This mass of snow didn’t know where to
dig and I had no snow-spade. Waited till
April when snow thawed and hares had
been hunted to extinction and fox fur
adorned and gave warm comfort to old
ladies. You looked fine, just as before,
but there was a hole in your head, and
now they think I have had a hand in your
demise…. Preposterous!

The Lone Parent

Active silence stalks my house, when it gets
too noisy I walk into the kitchen make a cup
of coffee and bang cooking pots lid together.
in the day my bedroom is light an airy softly
moving curtains let in the light and sound of
the street, come night it falls into melancholy
so deep I need a diver’s suit to go to bed.

I sit by the fireplace and it doesn’t roar, blue
flames move to a sound that is composed, for
them alone, by logs that do not even sigh
when made into ash; and there on the rug my
black cat is dead as a lost bedroom slipper.
my only daughter has gone to seek her fortune,
works in a Taco Bell and wears a uniform.

Senryu

I had to haste home
But left my eyes on a stone
To enjoy, sundown

Senryu

In the square’s corner
A fallen woman danced
With dust and leaves

Senryu

A denuded phellem
Suffers in noble silence
Birds do not titter.

Window Facing Backyard.3

Snow had fallen into the yard, a boy
was making a snowman; no, not
a fat one, but a small and skinny one
much snow falls down a dark space
between tall buildings.

The boy, whose mother clean steps
and lives in the basement flat, gave
the snowman coal eyes, carrot nose
and personality, it also wore my old
baseball cap.

When April came and snowmen in
nice people’s gardens had melted,
ours was still there, minus eyes and
nose; I kept sensing his presence, as
a work of art, after his final demise.

Window Facing backyard.2

From my window I can see the wall of
a factory where they used to make cigars.
On good days I can inhale the aroma of
bygone days that despite poverty were
in many ways, less judgmental than now

Eight month a year the wall is grey, but
come May when dry and lit by sunlight,
it is a map of the world. Lakes, rivers,
mountains, seas and arid regions where
an oily, black mass trickles down.

How nice it will be if someone comes
along scrapes off the old paint fills in
cracks and repainted the wall; pink this
time. I fear it’s too late, the wall will
soon fall drained by human disregards.