At the supermarket I wore
a red woolly overcoat,
so new that it was still smelling
of grazing sheep,
this because of the air condition,
which gives me
a running nose. I suddenly got
tired and went to
sleep on a shelf selling chicken
soup, each tin had
a label of happy chickens waiting
in line to have
their heads chopped off and
plucked by low paid
immigrant workers.
Born to be eaten, perfect food
not fatty I wonder
If that’s their meaning
of life … and us, aren't we
too born to eat or be eaten?
I rather be eaten by
a Bengali tiger or an African
lion, that’s more
respectable than to be eaten
by millions of rats
in a city’s sewer. I know
of a man who was eaten
by domestic pigs, his relatives
couldn't bring
themselves to mourn him or mention
his death to
anyone; drowned when out fishing
they said.
When I awoke I was in a barrack
in prison camp
on shelf like beds, hundreds
of us lay and we were
hungry. In the yard the guards
were roasting chicken,
the aroma wafted through the
camp so wonderfully
that eleven long time prisoners
hung themselves.
A man in green uniform called
us up by name and
gave each one of us a white
feather.
Jan Oskar Hansen
Copyright © 2004
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