Memorial Service Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

Local Memorial Service

Outside the funeral agency two employees
dressed for their job, stood smoking, by the pavement
a hearse with coffin inside stood waiting.
finally they threw the butts in the gutter started
The car to take to the church where the casket would
be decorated with flowers and then with a cortège
of mourners followed behind led by the local padre.
There were no many men among the marchers, they
thronged the bar on the way and only joined
in the last minutes.
The padre did the rituals and packed up and left
the mourners cried and there were many handshakes
among the people and talk about the dead person
who apparently had been a bit of a bastard cheating
in cards and not to be trusted.
Of course, nothing of this was uttered at the cemetery
it was later in the bar the person of ill-repute was mentioned