Christopher Hanson lives in Australia with his wife and three year old girl. His poetry has appeared in The Loch Raven Review, The Barefoot Muse, Worm, 14 by 14, The Shit Creek Review and The Chimaera.
Summer 2008
Table of Contents - Vol. IV, No. 2
Poetry Translations Non-Fiction Fiction Essays
Christopher Hanson
I like to think,
as I look at his hawkish face,
that the paper was real;
that he really held aloft at the airport
a half-crumpled, doomed agreement
like a winning lottery ticket,
as microphones stood on parade.
More likely it was a memo, or
perhaps a sonnet, in praise
of German magnanimity,
begun on the plane and to be finished
at gentlemanly leisure over tea,
while the real agreement smouldered
in a staffer’s briefcase.
Judging would be easy.
The flimsy optimism of those years
was worth the paper, worth shaking
the devil’s hand in Munich.
He never suspected
that those audacious men
were drawing vast,
efficient plans, consigning
peace to another time,
with bold annexes
that only mocked his umbrella.
Soon, another microphone carried
his leaden tone once more
to a resigned, weary world.
He read from a different sheet,
with a stilted voice; eyes
scanning his staffers’ faces
for any sign of belief;
with Churchill’s jowly condemnations
resonating, with posterity
about to relegate him to the role
of gullible dupe, whose peace
could not come soon enough.
© Christopher Hanson
