Boots on the right feet

a poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

The first astronaut who stepped on Mars’ red soil
left a pair of green boots behind as a practical joke.
The second astronaut, being a frugal fellow,
put them in a hold-all and gave them to his father,
who was not a preacherman but a cobbler in a small town.
The father displayed them in his shop
and they were quickly sold for $ 25 thousand dollar
to a forward thinking business man,
who later sold them for more than a million to collector,
a rich man who loves to walk around in his mansion late at night,
with a torch light, admiring treasures no one else is allowed to see,
chanting ‘It’s mine, its mine all of it’.
The cobbler bought a second-hand Oldsmobile he can’t drive,
but parked it outside his shop to look prosperous and attract clients.
The story could have ended there
if it hadn’t been for the first man on Mars
who fell on hard time after writing and financing his own musical.
‘A Travel to Mars‘ It was a total flop.
Who wants to see four men in a space ship singing soppy song
about the old folks back home and a cow name Daisy.
Claims that the second man on Mars had stolen his boots
and that they were worth a millions.
The New York Times, in its leader,
wrote that the boots belonged to the nation
and not to an individual, problem is that they are made in China
and will be seen as an advertisement for her shoe manufacturing industry.
Viewers sympathy were with the first man,
but when he was caught, on TV, smoking a cigarette empathy shifted
to the second man who had been kind enough to give the boots to his father.
The Supreme Court has to make a decision soon,
people demands a clarification of a dilemma that is fascinating our great nation.