Rich Man's Valley (Rewritten) Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

The vale of the rich

A strange place houses as big as castles tall forbidding walls
on top of broken glass in cement: gates that can withstand
armoured tanks.
Lush dale but no humming bees or bird song too much pesticide
for the sake of beauty, what's left is graveyard peace.
I sat on my bike for an hour in the hope of seeing people, but no.
Each palace was like an islet cut off from the world outside,
here they need no one and no one needs them, splendid isolation
Like an asylum of the weary madness.
Just as I was to leave a hearse pulled up an iron gate, the gate
opened and let, well even rich people must die, prisoners of wealth.
I ought to take some of them outside, so they see a bit of real-life
before a hearse arrives.