Rainbow Coalition Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

Rainbow Coalition


On the border between Chile from Argentina
there is a long barbed wire fence full of plastic
bags, some from posh shops in Paris, London
and New York, There are Japanese bags too
and some with Arabic letters, you can say it is
international garbage fence, but not quite, it is
eerily beautiful like a pale sad rainbow.

There used to be skeletons here too they all had
broken bones as dropped from planes, but
they have been removed now if you are lucky
or ghoulish you might find a collar bone or two
or a skull cleans by the wind; indestructibly sacks
flap, so deafening that you can’t hear the song of
the condors.