And so with sadness I leave Berlin A double sadness At leaving a city I’ve come to love And starting the homeward journey Of abandoning a place I sense could better define The terrain of my soul For one I fear no longer shall Strange that a mere two weeks Should leave me feeling this […]
Outside a concrete hexagon bland brutal grey the compact to the lipstick spire the other side of the crumbling cathedral a monument a memorial a mistake Inside a reflective room washed in tranquil blue light as spiritual and moving as any Gothic cathedral yet out of sync with that aesthetic the Cold War equivalent A trembling jewel hidden […]
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 […]
How proud So punctual At the Hackescher Markt Ten minutes early How efficient (at last) So early in the day Our affable guide A natural wit with ironic eyes And dramatic gesticulations Had a friendly Australian accent Undercutting her German English It took us more than An hour to get there Changing trains at the […]
She sits enthroned in a room of her own In a tall glass booth under an Egyptian dome Her only companion the bust of the curator Who ordered and paid for her appropriation Her strangely angled crown Alien Overdrawn Balances neatly the jut of her jaw Two fat Germans censor her cell ‘Nein, nein,’ they […]
Kranzler’s sun terrace on a summer afternoon Strains of a saxophone echo up Kurfürstendamm A sassy busker blowing jazz A stylish riff sensuous as If not for the Swissôtel on the corner across Twenty-one and too clever by half You’d think it was old Berlin as it always was Otto Dix characters Flower box blooms […]
We departed at dawn from the Gare de l’Est A pale dawn of pink clouds and lofty vapour trails Soon we were cutting through squared fields Woods and postcard villages Every house identical Colour co-ordinated Sentimental Rolling by it was easy to watch Like Barry Lyndon or Tess The view itself oblivious to the silver […]
Classical musos busk on the metro One day a violin The next a euphonium and clarinet Doing a passable take of Take Five Worth my euro I hoped they’d play more But moved on once the hat had passed For the rest of the ride echoes of Brubeck Punctuated the platforms As they worked through […]
This queue was quicker Ten minutes And no charge at the door Inside The massive cathedral Its vault and stained glass humbling Its arcade and chapels Intricate in layered carvings Art and devotion going back centuries So many people shuffled past Ogling in wonder these wonders vast Though not with devotion or reverence But fairground […]
The queue stretched a block or more From the ancient wood of the studded door ‘An hour’ the women in front of me said Could I wait that long in this heat? Isn’t there more to do than queue? Shop for souvenirs? Sit in a pew? I went to walk then caught myself No, this […]