Drenched in tears, I wrench in response to the pain I sense.
Caused by wrong desirers, walls, guards, and the electric fence.
Put here to stop free choice by man,
To keep him from becoming all that he can.
To hold imprisoned, crushing hopes and dreams.
To in flick hurt and pain, I can hear the screams.
Today, though they’ve been torn to their foundation,
They, once again, become a free people nation.
They now have hopes and dreams, both the young and old.
Thanks to many that died and many that were bold.
The challenges will be hard, but their hearts are filled,
With a burning desire, their lives to rebuild.
Perhaps he's crackers
to embrace glitz
(to paraphrase Irving Berlin)
'Putin on the Ritz'
tho'
'Sometimes something is better than nothing'
went the writing on the wall
yet
'Too much of nothing'
(wrote the Zimmerman)
is really no good at all
and
'Everything comes to those who wait'
an optimist put in prose
but
Cole Porter said it best
when he wrote, 'Anything Goes'
german wienerwurst
heavily lavished ketchup
a hot pretzel too
possibly a beer
dark bubbly gagging brew
welcome to berlin
Monkeys make the world go round
The world go round, the world go round
Monkeys make the world go round
They make the world go round.
Vervet, howler, capuchin
Marmoset or tamarin
Their ooking and their screaming sound
Can make the world go round.
Monkey-monkey-monkey-monkey
Monkey-monkey-monkey
Monkey-monkey-monkey-monkey
Monkey-monkey-monkey.
A VW Beetle
An unloaded thirty eight
In the passenger seat
And out through the gate
A briefcase of secrets
Chained to the wrist
Memorized instructions
From an unwritten list.
In the event of an ambush
Just pop five rounds in:
The only trouble was
They were sealed in a tin.
We weren't even sure
The rounds were live anymore
The tin was dated
Nineteen Fourty Four
These were the days
Before mobile phone
Just the courier and driver
Out on their own.
I suppose in a way
It was a bit of fun
Time out of the office
When you did the Courier Run
It never happened of course.
And we delivered to the Yanks
Who took our case
Without any thanks.
They treated us
With such disrespect
You’d think they’d decided
They’d be fighting us next.”
Briefcase of new secrets
Chained to the wrist,
Memorised directions
From that unwritten list.
A VW Beetle,
Unloaded Thirty eight
In the passenger seat
And back out of the gate.
The astral plane above knew no division of east and west,
No barbed-wire border pierced its vast expanse.
The sentry reverted his gaze swiftly back to base,
His visage firmly fixed in the dark shadows of duty.
No stellar show would dampen his resolve this night.
Binoculars raised, pernicious pistol ready
He scanned the ghostly death strip ahead .
Hostility hovered, lying in wait for a fool’s enterprise;
A daring dash for future promise.
In the distance, dogs started yelping
Searchlights scoured the pounding no-man’s land;
that bloodied blemish on freedom’s smooth pathway.
Tonight, no soul would traverse the treacherous terrain
For the stars shone too brightly up above.
02.11.20
Eight Word Challenge 11 Poetry Contest Sponsored by John Hamilton
COMPULSORY WORDS: : 1. DAMPEN, 2. BLEMISH 3. PERNICIOUS. 4. TRAVERSE
5. SENTRY 6. VISAGE 7. ASTRAL 8. ENTERPRISE
Cold and calculated
Assassain in the night
A diplomat of the faded
Never wrong; never right
Thousand-mile stare
The way she feels the ghost
It happened here but not there
Away from crashes at the coast
Missing never meant-to-be’s
Lonely as the setting sun
Chaos is surrounding me
Way too scary to be fun
Heal this virgin flower
Dilated and Sedated
Hour after wasted hour
Kinda wish I hadn’t waited
Maybe time will truly tell
Counting time before I fall
Or Is it time to leave this hell?
Its time to climb that berlin wall
No way in
No way out
I feel like a prisoner in my own country
American Berlin wall is what I call it
It's funny how the past repeats itself
Man kind selfish acts is like killing a bird with a stone
stone bird killer
stone bird killer
stone bird killer
stone bird killer
go ahead and cast the first stone
because I know you don't care
I still feel like I have to fight for my
freedom even if I 'am free as bird that flies the pretty blue skies
I don't know what's going to happen when the American Berlin Wall goes up
They say it's for are protection
But protection from what
We still have gangs
we still have crime
We still have drug Lords running are communities
We still have drug trafficking
We still have human trafficking
So how are you protecting the people of United States
When you still have those situations inside the United States
Stone bird killer stop lying
about how you protecting the people of the United States about putting the wall up
When you can't even protected us from those situations now
Berlin's a place that contradicts -
It's vibrant, but it's haunting,
The paradigm of hipness, with
A history most daunting.
The damage done in World War II
Reduced it to a rubble
And then the famous wall went up,
Which led to years of trouble.
You can't forget (and never should)
The Nazi reign of terror.
Memorials abound atoning
For that awful era.
Yet everything has been restored.
You won't see ancient buildings,
But modern takes of what was lost,
Replete with domes and gildings.
This is a city worth a trip,
With coolness overriding,
Defiant that to all the world
Its past will not be hiding.
In 1989 I rode the duty train with covered windows across the East German countryside, forewarned not to look outside. I arrived in that island of freedom, which was surrounded by oppression, tyranny, and more tank divisions than NATO had in all their armies combined. Kids were hammering pieces off the Wall and giving them to tourists; I pocketed a few a boy gave me. Passing through Checkpoint Charlie, I saw my first live Russian soldiers, guarding their monuments from what they referred to as the Great Patriotic War. Their goosestep style of marching was slower than the Nazis from forty-five years before, but just as menacing in its precision--perhaps even more so, with that arrogant hesitation when their boots reached the highest point. Before seeing East Berlin, communism and socialism were just words with an uneasy threat implied....but afterwards
The Wall had come down,
But the Russians were still there.
Lost in history.
I am an admitted dreamer
In my youth, I had hoped to see
Stockholm, London, Manchester
Paris, Berlin, and Nice.
I have gazed in awe at postcards
Of these places and its many sights.
Wished to win a trip as reward-
Being there would have been a delight!
Yet now I have read of the tragedies,
Of the violence and terror that plague
The citizens of these lovely countries
My dream coming true is rather vague.
There can never be a justification,
There can never be fearful acceptance,
When killing is used as a valid reason-
Then always it will face resistance!
There can never be any good in terror,
Because people have the right to be free
Be it in Stockholm, London, Manchester
Or Paris, Berlin, and Nice.
Cynthia Buhain-Baello
05.24.17
On the sky's hummock
she is like a ziggurat;
a gardener of
stars who takes care of
their shining watching over
their sparkling glimpses.
My only hope that
maybe she intend to look
after our little
and unfortunate
star too. The dim one under
whom our love was born to beam.
Wild galloping horse
Berlin nineteen forty-five
Hoof pounding the Earth
10/01/17
In Berlin, like dust
we arrive riding on grim
winds and then, when our
feet touch the ground,
our shadows become one with
the dancing shades of
Alexanderplatz
on a stormy Monday Eve
we, at last, gather
our shattered pieces
to make ourselves whole again.
For in Berlin, we find peace.
I wish I could tear
down the walls between us, but
everytime I
manage to break some bricks I
need to realize that you
are the one who makes new ones.
Related Poems