A rainy day unlike any other

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Have you ever met a taxi driver who writes poetry? Or a poet who drives a taxi for a living? Obviously not, because there aren’t any, right?

Well, it was raining that day. I was on my way to work in the centre of Athens, and I had to be there by 14.30. I go there by train, and then change for the bus; when I went to the bus stop the rain was pouring, and there were delays because of the increased traffic. As the time was already 14.20, my only alternative was to stop a taxi. This is something I rarely do, but as I was fairly close to my destination it would only be a short and inexpensive ride.

I was sitting in the back seat going through my lecture notes one last time, when the taxi driver, a middle-aged working class man, asked for my opinion on the economic crisis. A year has passed since then and when I look back I realise that this was the most interesting discussion I’ve ever had on the matter. We were both so absorbed in it that we almost passed the point I was supposed to get off.

And as I was getting off, the driver suddenly asked me if I read poetry. It wasn’t exactly a question though; it sounded more like a statement of his impression of me, waiting for verification.

I said yes. And then he offered me a copy of his collection of poems as a present. Apparently he is a self-published poet, and a rather good one I must say. I wish I had a way to contact him and ask him if he would like me to post some of his work online. I can only hope that I will do so next time I run late on a rainy day; maybe this is the very beauty of such unexpected occasions. But still, there is something I think he would enjoy – it is the concluding part of Hollow Men, by T. S. Eliot:

        Here we go round the prickly pear

        Prickly pear prickly pear

        Here we go round the prickly pear

        At five o’clock in the morning.

        Between the idea

        And the reality

        Between the motion

        And the act

        Falls the Shadow

                                        For Thine is the Kingdom

        Between the conception

        And the creation

        Between the emotion

        And the response

        Falls the Shadow

                                        Life is very long

        Between the desire

        And the spasm

        Between the potency

        And the existence

        Between the essence

        And the descent

        Falls the Shadow

                                        For Thine is the Kingdom

        For Thine is

        Life is

        For Thine is the

        This is the way the world ends

        This is the way the world ends

        This is the way the world ends

        Not with a bang but a whimper.

P.S.

And speaking of bangs and whimpers, the following links may be of interest:

It isn’t just the Euro. Europe’s democracy itself is at stake

Amartya Sen, The Guardian

The path not taken 

Paul Krugman, The New York Times

Banks come first in a Greek Rescue plan

Floyd Norris, The New York Times 

 

Greece and the return of the economic ‘death spiral’

David Blanchflower, The Guardian

The Greek Vise
Paul Krugman, The New York Times

Meeting the ‘new homeless’ in Greece’s freezing streets

Marc Lowen, BBC News

Sauvons le peuple Grec de ses sauveurs!
Libération

Save the Greek people from their saviours!
Éditions Lignes

Call for the defense of society and democracy in Greece

For the Defense of Society and Democracy

Greece shows us how to protest against a failed system

John Holloway, The Guardian

Lessons from Iceland: the people can have the power

Birgitta Jónsdóttir, The Guardian

Break up with your bank, fall in love with the 99%! 
OccupyWallStreet 

After all, it was Thomas Jefferson who wrote that “banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies,” in his letter to John Taylor, 28 May 1816, available at the Library of Congress. And if one was to put what the crisis is about in a nutshell, this phrase seems to me as a fine choice of words.