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GRIZLI777
A Cynical View from a
Balcony in ParisTanka, Senryu, poems and stories.Oscar Hansen
[Pick the date]
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Monuments
Is the Eifel tower female? Yes, she is a timeless Miss Paris.
Leaves are getting auburn and there is no denying fall is here.
Im the great survivor standing on a plateau of nothingness.
Many wasted years, ok, but it was those years in the wilderness
that brought me here. I shall not climb the tower from the outside
to honour the army of workers, who built this magnificent tower.
They are all but forgotten now. The name Eifel lives on, but the man
himself lost his crown when trying to build the Panama Canal.
I walk in a long corridor with many doors, but I will look inside,
my curiosity is gone I need not know. My goal is to reach the end of
the hall where I see shadows, perhaps the great man Eifel is there,
and if not, I hope it is the army of the forgotten I will meet.
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Fear of Flying
Having spent a week in Israel and seen the inequity and arrogance
of the way the Palestinians were treated, I had a breakdown and
sent to a psychiatric hospital. When feeling better a male nurse
was flying with me to London. The nurse had a great fear of flying
I persuaded him to take valium he was to give me. He got quite
giddy, I ordered whisky for both of us. He insisted on singing Yiddish
songs and fell asleep. I told the stewardess not to disturb him as he
had mental problems .For safety he was hand cuffed and I moved
to another seat. When we landed he had to be wheeled into
the terminal and it took me some time to tell them that it was no
longer my duty to look after him anymore. The nurse was carried
Into a cell while I caught a plane to Liverpool.
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Visitors
Worlds oldest man
Hundred and twenty today
Resides in a zoo
Visitors gasp as he smokes
The ape enclosure is shut.
Gorillas are envious
No one throws them bananas
Neglected and hurt
Want to go back to Gabon
Where Jane Goodall visits them
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Senryu
A pretty butterfly
Flitters across a highway
Splash.
Senryu
The admiral is dead
Sail ships congregate in the bay
Sunset
Senryu
Red admiral pale
Shivers on my window ledge
September.
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What Happened to Laughter?
What I miss the most not being a child, is its exuberance.
The easy tears and laughter, to jump up in the air for no
reason at all other that it gave a dizzying sensation.
I loved to go to circus, laughed uproar sly at the clown
and admired the lion tamer with his whip.
These days a clowns mask is an unfolding tragedy and
animals should be free to survive or die in the wild.
But I still hanker for the days of innocence which is so
utterly lacking in morality. Now I seek refuge behind
irony a place where to hide my tears and hilarity.
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The Leaf.
On my walks I picked up a perfectly formed elm leaf,
the colour of dry tobacco. In Norway, during the Nazi
occupation, people had tobacco plants in back yards.
Perhaps carrots and cabbage had been healthier.
Put the leaf on top of a white wall and took a picture.
The wind came and blew it away. I brief meeting of
equals and a memory
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Christmas in Lisbon (1974)
The day before Christmas the Atlantic was in a frenzy
it was with relief when we turned starboard and met
the softer water of Tagus.
We birthed far from town, on a double Decker Bus
I had bumpy drive into town. I good meal and wine,
just sting sitting there reading newspapers.
Rang my wife to hear a friendly voice, she asked if I
was drunk since I sounded chirpy. Put down the phone
Drank some more wine and aimlessly walked about.
Picked up an cushy prostitute, needed a warm body
next to mine, In the morning I took a taxi back and
a new long, laborious shipboard day began.
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Music
It is Saturday, the lady in the flat next to mine,
Is playing Mozart on her stereo
I have stopped reading, sit back and let
the wonderful music sooth my mind.
Im also immensely grateful that It is not someone
learning to play the drums that lives next door.
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The Excursion (Edith Piaf)
A man with blue rinsed hair was our leader.
We stopped outside the house where she was born,
the house is still a dwelling and the stone steps to the door
looked well trod. Our leader held up pictures of the lady,
photos I had seen before on YouTube, and told us a fairy tale
about her goodness. For a moment I thought he was
talking about a saint. We retired to a cafe where he sang
La vie en rose and forever destroyed the most beautiful
of songs..
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Second Excursion (Edit Piaf)
Fighting my way through the Metro and jostling
with rude French commuters I found my way back
to where Edith was born. The street was now entirely
Taken over by the Chinese, and best of all several
weddings were going on. The Chinese really can
throw a party, noise, laughter and lovely brides.
While I sat on the steps outside Ediths house, her
voice came back to me the offensive blue rinsed
man had not succeeded after all.
It was a beautiful autumnal day and together Edith
and I walked to a park overlooking Paris and saw,
at safe distance, the Fabled Eifel tower looking old,
yet elegant in glorious sunlight.
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A Cynical View from a Balcony in Paris
Fine rain, open umbrella, sitting on the balcony of a hotel
overlooking Haussmann Saint Lazare. A throng of people
and cars, but something as changed, people drinks Starbuck
coffee and eat burgers on the hoof. Old restaurants are
closing or converted to fast-food joints. I sigh and drink from
a bottle of Bordeaux to avoid getting rainwater in my wine.
This place together with rue dAmsterdam used to be where
the posh people lived and now, safe for the ruddy scrap yard
tower, this could have been downtown New York.
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Tanka (air travel)
Air travel
Like number nine to Garston
Lost its lustre
You will get nothing to eat
But you can buy high mileage food.
Busy Sex.
Our Alger taxi driver
Had two wives and five sons
Worked 18 hours day
How come he had time for sex?
O, it only takes five minutes.
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My Landscape
Today, now as the weather is cooling, I went on my walk.
Hadnt been here since June; simply because it gets to
hot to walk here in summers. The stony part of the track
was firm like walking on a cobblestoned street. The soft
part was like walking barefoot on a newly mowed lawn.
At the part where thorny bushes had made archway,
a tunnel of mystery, I hesitated. Neednt have worried
the branches embraced me like a mother whos young
son is coming home from the sea. When I stopped for
a rest under the tree where also sheep rest in the heat,
leaves, in perfectly still air, fell as confetti welcoming
the returning hero. How I love this odd landscape, once it
was tilled but now humanity have gone leaving the land
to its own devise and strange beauty.
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Tanka (Neo fascism)
The exterminators
Unrelenting nightmares -are
The superiors
The best must be beheaded
To ease the minors burden
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The God Problem
Religions root
Is mans guest to live forever
Not only of flesh
But superior to other life forms
Spiritual and advanced
He seeks a deity
In his own vain image
Insist hes right
Ready to kill for his icon
And askew timelessness
Will not accept
Hes no more than a weed
Or a dandelion
Forever seeking assurance
That life offers more than death
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The Experience
Twenty years ago
What I thought of as correct
I now see as wrong
I could have been right back then
If my views are now habitual
Due to lack of perceptions
But twenty years ago
I lacked lives true experience
Habituated by norm
Following the mainstream
I may see thing clearer now
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On the Highest Crest
Beautiful October
God has gone main-stream
Ignores the seasons
Wants to be loved by us all
Before the big deluge
Lovely October
God disregard the cycles
My river is dry
While I sunbathe by its shore
And think of buying camels.
Godly October
Vacations our new deity
Tomorrow is today
Frost and snow are banished
But Himalaya is an island
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Pretty October
We fight for a place to sit
The strongest win
Design a new national flag
And build a golden temple
Scenic October
The Sea is heavens mirror
God was a dream
No echo of man lingers
The long stillness has begun
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The horses
Three horses graze on my land, one is a foal.
In the twilight and with gentle rain falling
they remind me of work horses of by gone
days when I steered the plough that made
furrows in dark, clean soil.
When I stroke their flanks the good aroma
of warm horse arises; dreams are endless.
In daylight they pretend to be boulders, but
even then they make the land serene.
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Birthday Poem
Happy birthday
The festive occasion
Wishing me well
This gaping greedy hole
Too deep for an almond tree
Wonderful birthday
Im the oldest in my family
The rest have died
Seventy two years old
Am I immortal?
Blissful birthday
Carefree October month
A drifting ice floe
Breaking up in the ocean
Who will rescue me now?
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Tanka
Jubilation of life
Trumpet revel of a new day
Instead of stillness
Memories are silent
They fade and lose the truth
Tomorrow has nothing to offer
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A Soldiers Wife
I dont want to be a superman but I do love, love madly.
It is strange to think hadnt you come a long I would have
loved someone else- unthinkable today. When I finish
too early, you smile and say it doesnt matter but I know
I cant let you down and must make love to you again.
Lucky you cant read my thoughts, I used to be soldier
and dream the way we spoke about women in the dugout.
When I see a smile of heavenly satisfaction glide around
your face my work is done. Two body entwined, one think
of love the other about comrades in arms.
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The Sad Escape.
I sat by the table, near the window, reading. A woman and her man sat
on a filthy sofa, eating smoked sardines off an old newspaper.
This room stank of unwashed bodies and lack of hygiene. Dry washing
that should have been ironed weeks ago occupied a chair.
The pair rolled their own cigarettes and had nicotine stained fingers.
It was raining heavily I could not go out and felt a violent despair, like
a trapped animal that attacks its rescuers.Use fork and knife I snapped.
They both giggled. Rain had stopped I walked out, light shone out of
miserable curtainsand I knew. I must leave now. Get out! It was too easy
sink into apathy, and ignorance. Yet, I loved them, they were my flesh
and blood, good people who had never been encouraged to seek anything
better. But I must leave and I left never to return.
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Unplanted Land
Things made by man never impressed me, but the fallow land,
where I live, which is going back to natures way does impress.
On my walks I see how each plant strive towards the light, one
may say, as man seeks god, but here it is not about being better
or more powerful, its just nature. Thats way I see Eifel tower
as a symbol of power, pride and vanity. But in the back of my
mind an unpleasant thought arises: could it be that wars are
a natural cause? Natures way of insuring that only the strong
survives ? That peace is like fallow land, beautiful but useless?
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The Grump
This is really too much!
I have painted her chair golden,
The one she is taking to her flat in
Cascais.
Stabled the winter wood and
covered it with a black plastic sheet.
Still she goes on, wants us to go
to bed at eleven when Im watching
Charles Rose.
Im fed up, better off living alone.
She has gone out shopping and
why is she so late coming back?
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The Love Story
We live far apart
The distance is getting hazy
My dearest love
I can still hear your heartbeat
In the stillness of the night
Youre my love
Green eyes clear as the ocean
Tears like pearls
My soul was transient back then
My quest was worldly success
Give me sign
Help me to see, I was blind
Open my eyes
So you can come into sight
Before cruel time erases us
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The Night Fall
My evening walk was interrupted by night. Keeping close the verge
of the road I fell down a ditch, and saw stars as never before.
A kaleidoscope of colours swiveling around and around in my head
Life, we never see in daylight, was all around me, spirit shadows in
a haste to find food and safety before man intruded. Knew I had
caused chaos in their life, I got out of there and heard silent relief.
Starry, starry night, as the song goes, trees moved and whispered
scary stories about the man with the chainsaw, whether it is true
there is a Paradise for trees. Wished I could tell them a tall story
with a happy ending- no turning into winter woods and ashes for
them, but a malevolent mule kept kicking me home as it wanted
the night to itself.
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Non Je Ne Regrette (Edith Piaf)
Wish it was true
Regrets have made me what Im
Scars on my mind
I remember my mistakes
The done cannot be untied
There is no healing
Pain caused when briefly blinded
Yet, to be woeful
Is a pointless act of lament
Leads to joyless self pity.
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Tanka
Trumpeting outside
An elephant on the terrace
Its raining too
The poor thing needs an umbrella
Go back to sleep youre dreaming
Senryu
Dawn creeps in
Got to buy bigger curtains
Im not a worm
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Soldiers Pride
Soldiers train hard
They want to go into action
Show off their skills
In the art of killing enemies
And civilians in their fields
A dead soldier
Hard training came to nothing
Funereal at five
A skill the army knows well.
A medal on the mantelpiece
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The Tenth Month
Dead leaves
Blows useless in the street
Once so green
No one hear their despair
Every garden a cemetery
Fallen leaves
Dance no more to springs tune
Blow where the wind will
October moon, the mortals waltz
To the dirge of the vanished.
Saying
Marriage Is
Great expectations
Unfulfilled
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The Festivity
The party has ended they have all gone home, the house sighs,
I open windows cooling air clears away the smell of perfume
and full ashtrays. Wine glasses everywhere on tables, shelves
on the floor. Empties have to be thrown in the bin, and glasses
have to be cleaned and put back in the cupboard. Got to do it
now, I dont want to be faced with this task tomorrow morning.
Im glad they came to my day; glad to be alone also; sad too.
Im one year older and time seems so short, the ocean of life is
not endless and the horizon ends just beyond where the sun
goes down.
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October Sunday.
Along the promenade at the marina, where the rich
have their boats on display, the tourists have gone;
mostly Portuguese people walking about this sunny
October day. I have brought a camera with me, but
will not take pictures of boats which look like plastic
toys, shiny and had never sailed on the open sea. Yet,
they lend a pretty picture to the maritime ambience.
On the promenade elderly people, pretty girls and
boys, in their teens, walk up and down, for a moment
wished I was sixteen, but remember how painful it was
to be that young, a face full of acne and timid. A lovely
day, not a time for thoughts of mortality. While my
wife eats an ice cream I smoke a sly cigarette and think:
this is good Sunday to be alive.
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The Date.
It is midnight I was to meet her at nine under railways stations clock.
I waited to eleven, something might have happened, the train delayed
(his was before mobile phones were invented,) I didnt have her home
number. I walked along the docks where harbour light is forever throwing
itself into dark water. I threw the flowers I had bought her into the sea
and saw them sink slowly into the sea only the wrapping paper floats on
the surface of despair. I was seventeen it took great courage to invite her
out, this humiliation and she had such a sincere smile. Why couldnt she
had said no in the first place? It was what I had expected her to do.
A fog horn blare in the distance, the world knows I have been stood up.
no escape if anyone asks I will have to play the clown, make a funny story
to hide my sorrow for not dating a girl I thought I loved.
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The Poet
Is a quarreler
Doesnt accept status quo
No wonder
Plato
Didnt like them
Alas
Poets are also vain
Hungry for fame
Which rarely come their
Way
If they do meet success
And get a medal
They soon destroy
Their official status
By being
Quarrelsome