Berlin (2008)

The West controlled the U-Bahn. Underground train lines passed under the wall at certain points. Passenger trains from the West would pass through 'ghost stations' in the East, never stopping at these.

*

The communications tower spiking out of Alexanderplatz still casts the old omniscient spell at night, red eyelets flashing over the grey grid below. Socialist system a torn web still dangling from housing blocks, the eastern Ratthaus. In the former GDR, kids were herded into group potty sessions to sow the seeds of collectivism.

*

Chunks of city scattered amongst derelict blocks, may never be de-fragged. Temples falling into disuse. Underground clubs in abandoned vaults and warehouses; strobes spray lightning on sweat, shaved heads, concrete.

*

One dark dividing wall to split the brain of a city. Graffiti coats the surviving segments.

*

The opening of the wall was a bureaucratic slip – a rogue document inserted to sabotage the machinery. Paper jam. At the press conference, without pausing to consider the words or their meaning, the official read out the memo.



Published in Shadowtrain #23, October 2009.