Athens

Athēnā

Athens, a slum.

Crowned by eternal beauty.

Plastered hetaeras ride through your darkened streets in carriages of smoke.

Fast cars, notorious manic drivers slam on the brakes —

Sometimes too late.

Clinging to the butts of cigarettes, shuffling from kafeneion to kafeneion,

Men. In tattered suits, sweat patches under the sweltering sun,

Think they talk politics.

Every year we are the mob that burns you,

Exalting in the anarchy that bred us, direct descendants of your

Politeia. With tear-filled eyes we go back home

To mothers that will feed us.

It doesn’t matter that we’re thirty, childless, jobless.

It doesn’t matter that it’s tear gas.

We are the children of Piraeus, just

Never on a Sunday.

13/05/2009