Buffoons

a poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

The jokes in the bar is always on someone else,
the boss, the woman who had the good sense to divorce them
or just people in the street going about their business.
This is the inferior feelers finest hour here,
where the barman’s smile never reaches his eyes,
they can brag, be ten feet tall,
for tomorrow they will bent necked work
and collect grouches against the world.