Checkpoint - Ian Lilburne

Checkpoint Charlie overrun by tourists
Imagine imagining that thirty years ago?
Zimmerstraβe an open street?
The mire of no-man’s-land complete with
Day-trippers and cameras chasing souvenirs?

What better proof of capitalism’s conquest
Than a rough and ready stall
Near what’s left of the old Berlin Wall?
An East Berliner selling hipflasks and flags?
Pretend guards in American uniforms
Posing for photographs?
The Gendarmenmarkt and Unten den Linden
Eclipsing Karl-Marx-Allee
Rivalling again Kurfürstendamm?
No longer ruins but grander once more
Than the zones south of the old Cold War

Just as the final slap on Hitler’s ghost
Was to contain Wilhelmstraβe
And his beloved Chancellery
In the Russian sektor

The old guardhouse looked better in black and white
Framed by crumbling buildings
A makeshift stamp of order on chaos
The Checkpoint is poorer without this sharp border
Everyone’s happier – especially in the East
And rightly so
But the West has lost a certain vitality and edge
However illusory and unjust
A touch of rebellion and difference
That held it in check