The promise of a future bright
encased in a temporal temple:
It sits among Berlin’s blinking lights,
a spaceship made to resemble.
Its oracles stood in this aluminum starchurch
dressed in sparkling ABBA track suits,
alit by glittering disco ***** with lights that search
for the future’s many loyal recruits.
But futures seldom turn out the way
that priests of the modern prophesy,
and this once sleek starship sits, decays
while stoic streams of cars drive on by.
What happened to the dreams we had
of federations who deep space explore?
Was it all just an ephemeral fad
now left in twilight, to be ignored?
Then again, this is Berlin, the place
that is built upon its broken dreams —
Utopias all cast aside, but which grace
this city with abandoned and fading gleams.
The starship sits in unending preflight,
awaiting the signal to lift off.
Its digital clock counts down to delight
but never makes it past Hasselhoff.
Climb aboard Battlestar Berlin, my friends,
fly with warp speed to nowhere at all.
Before you know it, the latest trends
will leave you yearning for total recall.
Inspired by the International Congress Center in Berlin, a 1970s futuristic building that sits in decay, but is emblazoned with a big red banner promising a reopening that never seems to come.
