A few takes on life in the East of Germany

Dark Edge 26 x 26 cm

 

PLAYING BOULE IN A BERLIN PARK

I have to admit that there are

certain parts of myself I don’t want to visit. Just as there are

a handful of market towns on both sides

of the Polish-German border, part industrial,

part rustic, and part something else

eerie if not downright frightening, that I

don’t want to visit either unless, you know,

I feel compelled one day to write

the history of Cabbage and its myriad manifestations—  

the Cabbage War of 1688-89, the annual Cabbage Parade and its Queen,

the putative Death of Cabbage, even the full-diaper stench

of sauerkraut on a Sunday afternoon in October—

and what it means to the people who live in that haunted scenery.

From my fourth floor observation post here

in the capital of all things Prussian, and where it’s

the potato rather than cabbage that reigns, I can see a pleasant distraction

taking shape: a half-dozen ex-roadies(long graying hair,

tattered Led Zep t-shirts)playing boule beneath the elms and beeches,

the hardening chestnut leaves, a dozen beer

bottles lined up on a bench. I can just make out some

of their routine insults, curses, an outraged complaint or two.

The color of their attitude and atmosphere is Newcastle Brown Ale.

And if they have anything to hide, they’re not showing it.

  The subtle music of Boule! This venue is actually quite close to where we live!