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The soiled curtains blow inward. The steel bed faces the window. Open to the grey street below. A crowd has gathered. They sigh a song, Ah, Belin. Fragile skeleton, why should you have to pay? To suffer the dreams of blood memory…half remembered thought, an unrolling history of time like a river always moving forward. Republics fallen, ruins of German blood revenge.Where is that brazen lady of the night who soothed the tattered soul and left you diseased but happy?

Angst hangs about like an angry ghost. You hear the words like bells in your head. Traitor! Traitor! A bullet in the head would have been neat. Not like this unstable pain that sears your groin like a hot poker. This evil that eats your body to the bone. The morphine only dulls the surface while your mind hides in clever delusion, distorted vision of what was and what really was.

What once is no more. poor dear. The click of boot. The lifted leg prancing to the beat. The beat… The syringe is waiting. It sings out. Bones of dead men dance before your eyes. Prison, You escaped the firing squad. and for what? This lonely, anguished memory of evil. You had to know. You were proud of what you did. You knew. Pick up the syringe and all will finally come to an end. Will it ever end? Whose side were you on? The money side. And they took it all away along with your shiny  boots and gold insignias. The eagle, where is the eagle? One large shot and it ends like the dead clock on the cracked wall. Their voices are just the faintest of whispers. This dirty heat and filthy sheets. You hear them below your window.

Ah Berlin, Ah Berlin, Ah Berlin…