Berlin: Postlude

Portrait of Our City

We rush in every morning

to our unemployment in old Berlin —

eyeing tourists from habitual barstools,

hopping the U-Bahn to spray our city art.

We laugh: we are poor but sexy.

 

Some days end at 17, others at 3 —

S-Bahn out to where the streets sprawl

through a concrete empire of empty

communist apartment buildings filled

with the quiet of another same-day ending.

We haunt the only Lidil for miles —

its sign winking neon and friendly

is the only light but for the cold

streetlamps and a wary circus

with baubles glowing from tent tops.

We have long been dropping gods

in the Spree, the rest we tore down

with the Wall. Once we debated, now

we disguise our churches — but we never

even built them at the end of the line.

Some facts: Berlin is considered the atheist capital of the world, with over 60% of the population having no registered religious affiliation.

As of April 2010, the unemployment rate was at 14.2%. The average for Germany is 7.9%.