New Poems Page

Excerpt from Berlin Album (click here for more info)

mmmmm“Nothing, above all, is comparable to the new life that a reflective person experiences when he observes a new country. Though I am still always myself, I believe I have changed to the very marrow of my bones.”
mmmmm—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Italian Journey

Women who look like my mother
men who look like Helmut Kohl
on the flight unloading at Frankfurt
before the jet to Tegel—much flesh
around the waist and trimness too, white shirts
and blue-striped ties

—a Slavic family, young mother bitter, in her arms
fat child bouncing, father
resigned to airline irregularity, pushes a stroller
blond hair sticking up
older child running in the crowd
and his job to control her

—Turkish driver speeding deep into the city
—women (wind in hair, open faces
cheekbones upright and slanting)
leap from paving stones onto bikes

—rows of five-storey apartments
—police guarding synagogues—graffiti—
massive museums and along Oranienburgerstrasse
men drinking beer outdoors
rows of stained tables
some serious toughness
turned inward
Would their fathers have killed
mmmmmas commanded, sped
mmmmminto Poland before they
mmmmmwere killed, blood rushing back?

—and new birds this first day, I keep hearing
the unseen bird of Berlin
like a robin, sweeter
and once a shape
darting over children led by young women
thick braids
singing down the street, German
tumbling soft, some faces apple right…