Am Elisebetkirchstraße
At 4:00am:
the decrepit
midnight sky,
crumpled as a hospital bed
and howling,
"Ich brenne!"
leaped through your livingroom window,
and clawed his mouth apart,
dancing
till his legs gave way;
the crooked rain,
like the burnt offering of a naked prostitute
sprung from her burning brothel
bed,
collided with the cobblestone
cracks
on Elisebetkirchstraße;
and the wayward
tic-toc
tic-toc of
the city's thundering surf
caught fire and
lifted a dirty,
tear-streaked stein
to the memory of your
carnivorous lips
and the strangled inhibition
of your caustic burnt-out eyes.
But, here in your livingroom,
the couch, sleepless
and lewd
as a taxicab,
turns its callused cushions
to your unwelcome lover.
And through the broken plaster
of dutiful DDR walls,
a lonely piano quietly wakens the beleaguered sickle-stars.
Outside, the bodybag of time calmly hangs itself
from lamposts
as night leaps back out your windows
with an empty glass
in hand
and a host of
burning prostitutes,
howling
like a chorus line
of frenzied maenads,
and crashes to the pavement
with a terrible,
wringing
CRACK!
And time,
that surly streetsweeper,
scatters the ashes of this
fruitless offering,
leaving withered auguries like trampled tea leaves
in the crimson pools
of a tongueless street
while I sleep alone in my puddle of thoughts.
