The Dinner

a poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

John, Mike and I sat in a restaurant,
we couldn’t order wine,
John had a problem with booze.
I got up to buy fags in the pub next door,
Mike got up too,
he was going to see a nurse at the hospital.
I drank four pints of lager and a few whiskies
and when I came back
Mike sat kissing my ex-wife,
she didn’t recognise me ’cause
I was dressed in a Cossack uniform,
riding a horse and wearing a false moustache.
John was drunk asleep on the floor
and I was grumbling
because my dinner was cold.