1918

how about that time, that other place

a time we didn't know

a time in which we wasted time we didn't have

on streets not yet invented

or named

after state leaders that had yet to die

that city, a book

see it while away on yellowing paper

untrained in the art of flaunting it's pages

to the flirtacious eyes of a reader

desperate

to be persuaded into an affair

the libraries go hungry

the same libraries

we trained in verse

they lend their arms to the sick

and desireless

against an annuity

consisting only of parts of their non-longing

lions without lion tamers

and no knowledge

of how to go wild

jennie, the vanishing elephant

resurfaces at the far end of sonnenallee

replacing a gasping audience in the hippodrome

with a complacent pack of eurotravelers

outside the estrel hotel

grasping a disparate selection of german beers

with one hand

and applying the second for applause

the diary entries from that day all read:

«dear diary, we won»