My plan is to graduate, go to college in some state
To take my friend to Canada before it's too late

I want to be a teacher or a councillor, something nice
I want to travel around the world, no matter the price

To go see China and learn the language and their ways
To go to Africa and watch how they live for days

I want to travel to India and visit some friends
I want to spend my life in Italy and hope it never ends

Germany, France, Mexico, Spain
Romania, Greece, Iraq, Ukraine

I really need to go to "the land of the green"
Meet up with friends and do everything in between

I know that I won't travel that far or do all of those things
But I have to be honest, it's a wonderful dream

It's been a long time
but the ink scrawls & lines all fall into place

an expressionist
glimpse into urban dreams

somewhere in the past
a typewriter sounds

someone is writing
a masterpiece

which will never
be published

in a land
soon to be bombs & flame

meanwhile my lines
make out the city of my dreams

In Hamburg I loved
A strange girl,
She put my whole being
In a whirl,

She spurned everybody
But me,
I made her happy,
In Hamburg.

But if she had
Spurned me,
I'd have looked her in the eye,
And run away,

And in my room,
I would have cried,
I might even have died,
In Hamburg.

The big day was a week away
The streets were being swept
Folding stands erected
Where homeless, last week slept

To make a good impression
The Mayor told one and all
To step up and take note
To answer his loud call

We must show the whole country
We are the best at what we do
We have to show the country
The best side of me and you

This meant weeks before this
The police were out in force
Removing the imperfections
Both on foot and out on horse

A cleansing of the city
Make it nice for all to see
It brings up bitter memories
At least it does to me

It happened back in Europe
A little corporal took command
He did his little cleansing
With his little **** band

The town had hung up bunting
Like the banners in Berlin
being homeless is a problem
It's not where a cleansing should begin

The mayor had plans for plenty
Marching bands and lots of press
He'd only answer pre-set questions
In case it all became a mess

He had to have it perfect
It was his first parade you know,
the streets were freshly steam cleaned
There was nothing he didn't want to show

The displaced folks all huddled
Down in the park, a mile back
Veterans and soldiers
Whites, Hispanics, and some black

Their town was in transition
They were the cities hidden sore
They would never be accepted
Never let inside a door

The Mayor stood on the dais
Waved and smiled as folks went by
It was a town of smoke and mirrors
He showed the world a great big lie

Like the small Austrian corporal
who refused to change and would not bend
The Mayor lied to his country
It was the beginning of his end

Let’s bomb Dresden
with the black fire
of thousands
of bookmarks
with poetry
of poets
far and
wide

-so it
goes-

and
each
side is
printed
with verse;
flip flopping
through the air
each to land on
Dresden’s ghosts.

If I were to talk to god,
I imagine that he would look like an aging French artist living in Germany,
With a slightly severe case of depression
And also an unsettling smoking addiction.

I imagine he would be living in an apartment room barely big enough for his ego.
With nothing but a bed and a nightstand
with an ash tray and a bottle of whiskey, half full.
And between puffs of smoke he would sip from a lowball glass, and sit.

He’d keep his door unlocked, for no one ever visits,
And when they do, they assume they’ve opened the wrong door
And they would quickly go search for the man they thought he was.
He’d let out a chuckle between sips.

However, if I were to meet this artist,
I would just ask him what he’s done.
And he will reply, with smoke trailing from his nostrils and the tone of a drunk,
"Hell if I know."

I have studied **** Germany
Someone stood and preached to me
All the ‘important’ names
All the ‘important’ dates
I wrote them down like longshore secrets
And debated over them
Like they were the pencil sharpenings
With which I littered the floor
‘Excellent analysis’ she said
I have even stood by the gas chambers
And the gallows
At Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp
And written insensitive poetry about insensitivity
But have I heard of Hans Litten?
Of course I haven’t.
I have stood in the Berlin gestapo office
And formed philosophies that feel more like profanities
Wondering how it can ever be appropriate
To take a school trip to a genocide
But tonight my ‘important’ education
Feels like the greatest atrocity
My guilty ignorance beats almost unbearably
Around my rib-cage
And waits for the shatter and the shards
Because I have never heard of Hans Litten
We all know six million
But who knows the six million?
We remember names that we stored away
Because mentioning them in an essay
Might bring about a higher grade
Displaying ‘a highly developed and complex level of understanding’
We remember names like we remember shopping lists
Or science lessons;
A few particular points
No attachment necessary
In fact, clinical detachment is far more becoming
When it comes to essay questions
They never told us about Hans Litten
Or about the men who also ran in the race to be in history books
Or about their mothers
And their fathers
And the people they shared cells with
And the people they shared graves with
My God, they never told us about Hans Litten
And Hans Litten is better known
Than most of those phantom dead
Those cracked-open voices that dared to raise
Until they were too loud for anything but the conveyer-belt
Concentration Camp system.
And the thing is that six million is not such a big number anymore
Because there are 49,506,514 views of Simon Cowell crying
And nearly 300 million of One Direction singing a song which is not so beautiful after all
And people are so desensitized to the number six million
That they believe that the world
Would not have enough **** in it
Without them posting hatred after obscenity after hatred in the YouTube comments
And Hans Litten, I can’t help feeling that I’ve failed you
My generation could tell you the private lives of their idols
But would not know your name
And we will still pour into school on Monday morning
And chorus our tireless fatigue and our lack of motivation for life
And I will still pour into school on Monday morning
And let myself complain and moan and grapple for sympathy.
I’ve acquired this abstracted self-loathing recently
That is less a hatred of myself than a hatred of what I have made of myself
Of my ingratitude and self-centred inability
To compose poems that do not start and end with Me
And of my procrastination and my ceaseless desire
To live something other than the life I’ve been given
Like I asked for extra cheese and got given Margharita
****.
I’m insufferable.
Hans Litten your list of injuries was ten times longer
than the list of all the wrongs I’ve had done against me.

I am a dramatized china doll,
but I never rouge my knees.
The MC introduces me as Scarlett.
Lulu embraces me as we saunter
off the platform.  Whistles follow my footsteps
digging into my brain, fermenting,
to strong wine.

Gentlemen enter the club to leer
at cabaret girls dancing in lace.
Some are drawn to the boys of the club,
the ones in the dark corners with kohl-rimmed
eyes and eager kisses.
From their seats in the dimness, the audience
fails to notice rips in my blouse, cigarette
butts smudged out in the wings.  No one
sees the ***** face powder spread out
among the lighted mirrors, overused,
my own makeup dried out.
Their giggles and applause keep
the club alive, filled with dead
grins from dinner to dawn.
Drum roll—my turn.  
We rid them of their troubles.

You’ve left a handprint on my heart, from where you reached in and nurtured the burns and scars and helped life to grow again. you held your hand out to me and lifted me up to dance with you, a slow waltz that I had to learn as you lead me ‘round the room. When you left me to catch my breath, the fear of leaving you almost paralysed me - and the realisation that I must nearly broke me.

You showed me what it was to live, and to live in such reckless abandonment that I knew I would never belong in the place I once called my home. you redefined home for me, showing me the truth of “home is wherever I’m with you.” Your sunsets were painted more beautifully than anything I’ve ever seen, and the way you always lead me to the artist behind such great sky-paintings left me in awe. Who else can teach me to fall in love with two beings at one time.

I still reach for your hand subconsciously, lean in to rest on your shoulder before I realise that you’re no longer with me. You’ve left me homesick, wondering where home may be, the place where these itchy feet can finally rest. You’ve filled my mind with reminders of cities, people, prayers and dreams, and I’ve found that as long as these thoughts rattle in my mind, sleep and rest are impossible.

You’ve shaken me to my very core, and all that remains is that still beating heart, with your palpable handprint glowing in the darkness