BERLIN

I arrived in Berlin

in the great fog of November,

inside the night i heard the pulse of rain

swallowing the echo of the U-bahn.

On drifted streets of peeping towers

 and blocks of cloned concrete,

sleeping under a cruel damp sky

smiling at the ghosts that walk the city.

On a spacious forecourt at Bebelplatz

a bricked pale path of glass bookends,

Germanic monuments stood in turquoise stone

like God’s staring at a world yet unborn.

Skeleton of a green communist car

sketched on the remnants of the wall,

with each touch of paint a bead of struggle

every colour illuminates this loss of life.

Wasted life is a candle that does flicker

under a paper made cross of unknown names,

the lost memory of the unknown dead

are scattered like origami angels.

MJ DUGGAN.

Published in ‘Sarasvati’ poetry magazine.