A Thousand Tales and Poetry 60 pages 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.