Student Publishing Program ::

Aviva Mattingly

Losing Athena

Riots spark across cobblestone streets
As authorities suppress the crowds
Police fire tear gas canisters
Athens now cloaked in acrid grey clouds

Violence grows like sinister poison
Riots spawn out to the island of Crete
Angry words escalate to fatal bombs
Cement cracks and crumbles in defeat

Ensuing flames seize apartment balconies
Buildings bright from fire eruption
Scorched buses heighten the terror
As looting locals contribute corruption

It all began with arbitrary shooting
When a fifteen year old lost his life
This should spark change, not acts of outrage
When will we ever learn lessons from strife?

Where once ruled the goddess of peace
Over people who cherished her name
The city is now rapt in modern mayhem
And abandoned Athena looks down in shame

She watches her land in disappointment
Her values ignored, and her fame lost
Once a deity, now forgotten
The people paid an irreversible cost.

[TABLE OF CONTENTS, LHS CLASS OF 2011 EDITION]