Old Friends Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

Old friends


My friends and I are elderly men with protruding bellies, we drink whisky
in the evening and talk about the old days; and of friends that went before
us. We feel slightly envious of them, as we have yet a death to come.
The war in Afghanistan has lasted ten years and might last ten more years
this makes us smile for we know wars are endless, like a bad back we have
to learn to live with. Little has changed in our life time, avarice and lust for
power rule ok. In the bar we talk about football, a game of utter futility.
When we leave and see a beautiful girl walking past we don’t bother to turn
around for a second glance, what’s the point. When a friend dies, usually of
cancer or heart attack, we go to his funeral, drink whisky, shudder and talk
about him, sport and the crazy world we live in.