Jan Hansen | + Follow Poet |
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Snow Is White

Snow is white
He was born in a rather narrow-minded town that had
strict rules for acceptable behaviour, no bars, no restaurant
serving alcohol and no public display of affection.
A Muslim scholar who came to this town by navigational 
error, left in a hush, claiming the city was too Pakistani 
Houses were painted white, or very light yellow no other
colours were allowed, a rebel, a communist painted his 
house red, the law came down hard on him, said his house
was a fire hazard,
had to paint white over the red that made his dwelling look 
like a diabetic ulcer.
When new people bought the house, they scrapped off
the old colour painted the house brilliantly white, only to
 discover “white” was no longer a favourite colour.
Any colour would do but white.
Books and articles were written about how terrible the whites
500 years ago, were, colonizing nonwhite countries behaving
 cruelly statues of that time were thrown into the sea, great noise 
from the righteous people of the day.
The whites took to hating themselves in winter use self-tanning
cream and in summers sat so long time on the beach they got 
wrinkled skin and cancers.
But not despair everything is in transition, like men who feel
like women cut off their es and wear frocks only to discover
nothing had been wrong with them, just being gay.
Too late for them, you might say, but it is also too late for us as
we gladly walk down the path in an oblivious haze towards
the bleaching of the bones.

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