Lower Class Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

Lower class

When children we were poor, and that was ok,
we knew hunger,
it was not so much not having much living in unsanitary houses
no bathroom we all lived like this and thought nothing of it,
it was that our life was staked out by authority
our job after
seven years schooling was to man the factory, some went
further and became welders and others electricians which
the nearest we could get to being middle class.
Most children when young accepted their future life and
after long years in a factory got a watch from the administration
and a picture in the local newspaper.
There were many losers some became drifter didn`t want to
we called them lazy some became seamen while other sank
into alcoholism and they were the clever ones
no one saw their talent, and the gifted didn`t know how
to set themselves free living in boarding houses walking in
the shadow, luckily many of them died young.
Life is better now we have a better chance there never was
a time of the good old days.