End Of Austerity Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

End of Austerity

Winter had ice on the village pond, under elm trees sweet snow,
and our village was a postcard. Now it is about the price of potatoes,
no herring in the sea. Austerity, old women have been cooked and
made into lard. Old men have been rounded up, put in barrels and
salted; to be eaten, -as dry cod fish, - with green leaves of spring.
No winter wood, shot gun pellet damp and rabbits eat the carrots,
bankers live on curried eels rolled in euro notes, they let no one in.
Austrian mist dwells over Europe, yet there is the promise, EU has
disappeared like the romantic alpine fog; the drachma and escudos
are a legal tender again. Winter of discontent is over the English
will be scheming while waiting for approval by the USA (the special
relationship is a misty London dream) The French and Germans can
continue their natural enmity, as Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg
stir, as always, the big black pot of political intrigues.