#Greekdebtcrisishaiku

By A.E. Stallings

Europa, we’re through:
Take back your privative a-
vowals: I, O, U.

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Why is Hope the one
campaign promise still stuck in
the jar, Pandora? 

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Tragic ironies:
Stock Market’s not on Wall Street,
here it’s Sophocles.

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Snowfall. Parthenon.
Is it a miracle, or
Hell freezing over?

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Finance minister:
fashion shoot in Paris Match,
swanky apartment.

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It’s like the movies,
Only not Zorba the Greek,
Thelma and Louise.

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To: Lord Byron--Sir
Greek loan approved but held up
Now that you’re dead. Stop.

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Easter: Anarchists
quit occupying buildings,
crack red eggs, not glass.

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Alphabet of angst—
Ach! Is all that’s left between
Drama and drachma.

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Panic, oligarchs,
Democracy, tragedy,
dilemma, chaos.

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Solon promises
to devalue the coinage:
600 B.C.

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“Grexit”—so ugly!
So Latinate! What’s wrong with
“Hellenexodus”? 

Athens
8 July 2015

A. E. STALLINGS is the author of Olives (2012) and other books. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Parnassus, The New Criterion, and other magazines. In 2011, she became a MacArthur Fellow. She recently wrote about the Greek referendum for Partisan.