The Twentieth Anniversary of the Berlin Wall tumbling down and time to collect my thoughts on this concrete aberration.
If Freud had
wasteland
acres and acres
black and white
grained
faded
old
looked at me
photographs
showcased
opposite
Brandenburg’s
Gate
denoted
before modernity
the city’s edge
then
a wall
segmented
constructed
ugly
violent
brutal
separated
east from west
humanity
from humanity
divided
the soul’s
hemisphere
as a brain is
both left and
right
cells
trillions
of currency
in denominations
too many to name
as crosses mark
and identify
those killed
jumping from east
to west
from right to left
filled the waste
to prove a point
Checkpoint
Charlie
a global till
dispensed cash
no questions asked
now
what for
us remains?
people mill
cars roar
lights blink
red
green
to ease the meanderings
of pedestrians
cameras slung
bags shouldered
gawp at
could this have been
a war
would millions
have died
for this space
vacuum at the heart
of power
politics
the Reichstag
was
dreams
glistened in plastic
a recent memory
an old aberration
lacerated by rain’s
damp clouds
pock marked in a frenzied
nightmare
before awakening
most now filled
some remain
sole reminders
as graffiti
Russian Cyrillic
etched into stone
we queued
orderly
through the glass
portcullis
slipped open
crossed into
history
totally refurbished
and walked into the
lift
out
onto the roof
flat
broken by
a glass
cupola
crystalline
tourists wend
their way
inside
ascend
gradually round
and round
to its apogee
a halo of
enormous metal
tubing
facing west
the sun
emerging from grey
is diffused
across it
time seldom
travels
without being warped
by memory
nor light a clear image
but impressions
of what is and has
been
I’d never felt
triumphal before
but here
walking
on the Reichstag’s roof
overlooking the city
I did
where
death had haunted
where division had
prospered
where psychosis was
honoured
where might
and cowardice
was feted
where destruction became
a philosophy
where people
became
a carpet
a meadow
for others
to walk over
to reach their
promised land
I overlooked what was
barren
now giant
glass and concrete
building sites
and reflected on
what
had been
wasted
if Freud
had been
born
in Berlin
would
sex
have become
a weapon?
