Exile Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

The Exile.

You can’t leave this town for the next six years, the magistrate had said.
Rang my house, no one there, I wanted someone to send for my dog so
I had good company in my exile; hoped my neighbour fed the cur and
didn’t put it down. I could not drive my car since I didn’t have the right
license, and could not obtain one since I didn’t had the right documents.
The car stands there rusting away when I don’t sit in it pretending to
drive, or sleep in it when I’m too tired to walk up to the sixth floor, when
the lift has broken down or used it as a toilet. A man, in facebook, said
he was in New Orleans, very well for him, but what made him tell me this,
did he try to impress me? I, who live in a town where I can see the sea,
from my window and need not live in fear of bursting levies. I’m going for
a walk, a ghost alive, on the way to the bus terminal, people move aside-
a ship ploughing the water. I’ll board a bus and see where it takes me.
The bus I took yesterday only drove around the suburbia, many houses up
for sale, but I wasn’t going to buy any of them. Can’t think of anything more
forlorn than a vacant house I hear echo of crying and distressed voice.
It is the bank’s castle now. My cottage is empty too, outside sits a dog,
waits for me to come home.