'Weimar' poetry cycle

 

Cycle of three 'performance poetry' pieces, set during the era of the German Weimar Republic.

A celebration of that era's comparative liberalism, decadence and thriving art scene which would be quickly killed by the events of World War II. Herein I play two characters who perform their sides of a story over several years.

Begun during lockdown in 2020 and completed this year thanks to the re-opening of open mic events. 

Diverse influences range from Bob Fosse to Alban Berg, Georges Bataille, Kurt Weill, Marlene Dietrich and Adam Ant (!). 

ACT I: Berlin Girls (2020)

ACT II: Marlene and Me (2022)

ACT III: Die Freudlose Gasse (2022)

(A fourth part, following the concept of the 'satyr play' in ancient Greek drama, has been added to complete the cycle on a deliberately more upbeat note:)

All four parts have been merged into a 'movie' edition with additional material, to present the cycle as a complete and single work.

Texts:

Berlin Girls

Fell in love with a Berlin Girl, just the other day
Saw her in the chorus line of the Domino Cabaret
Among the same old regulars, incognito on the town,
The boys who might be girls, and the young thugs in black and brown.
In this midnight, twilight world there is something for everyone
A thousand ways to be disgraced, to let loose your idea of fun.
In black and white they’ll strut their stuff, on every night down town
But if like me, you fall for one, expect no sympathy
For that broken heart
She’ll leave you with…
One day, someday, you’ll see her somewhere
Standing on a smoky backlit stage.
Bad news, headlines, forget about the world’s crimes
For an hour or two she’ll help you turn the page.
In chorus lines, she’ll look divine
Stepping out in perfect time
With a flash of some forbidden fruit.
Throw me another cigarette, I’ve got something to say
Fell in love with a Berlin Girl, just the other day.
The nasty drink-fuelled nationalists can say just what they like.
But we all know that anything goes and everything’s all right.
There’s horror, lust, and ecstasy on stage at the White Mouse.
The Behrenstrasse’s Babel, and Berlin’s second wildest house!
There’s love and pain aplenty, dressed in shiny leather boots.
But whips and chains and naked hips are nothing when you see
With your own eyes,
This fantasy…
Oh, those Berliner Girls
They’ll take you to another world.

Marlene and Me

Good God, yes I love you, what more must I do?

Or say, to convince you I'll always be true?

I've turned down the richest, the wisest, the best

that the gay cobbled streets of the Nollendorfplatz

could ever bring forth to piquantly tempt me,

corrupt me, seduce me, or just deviate me

from my piously unwavering path to your door.

I gave them all hell! The girl in the pastry shop,

all sly winks and pigtails, forever regaling me,

always just failing to get me 

intrigued to lay hands on her Herrencreme.

And the tall English man at the Cafe Imperial

rehearsing his "Deutsche fur einem diplomatischen Treffen teilzunehmen:

Guten Morgen, liebe Dame."

"Good start! Ich bin keine Dame, Dumkopf."

"Oh, Verzeihen Sie. Mochter Sie etwas trinken…Champagner?"

"Champagne! I do gin, dear, and I do it alone,

For my sins – like most of my sins

so bye bye Mein Herr, go back to your embassy, 

Tell Mr McDonald I send him my love!"

I left them in tatters

'cos none of them mattered

because you, only you,

are the one I return to.

The one I wake up with, 

have never once doubted -

but you didn't believe me

you followed and trailed me

down every dark alley I hurried at night,

a nocturnal pilgrim to the talking Madonna.

You went out to seek, but you found her right here...

the posters, the postcards,

the signed cigarette paper

its bent frame still gleaming

like fairytale gold

after you dropped it in spite or in anger.

But it's 1929 for god's sake! 

We can love whomever we wish,

can't we - so long as it's clean,

not strange or illegal?

But, my name now is Jezebel, or maybe it’s Salomé

deserving of penury, scorn and abuse?

You know what 'Platonic' means,

don't you? Eh, you don't.

Well let me explain - no listen -

so yes, I'm in love

with you...you, and Marlene

Blonde Venus incarnate, my goddess of dreams.

We waltzed and we tango'd through

nine hundred epics

that were born from my quivering first revelation

when I met the Blue Angel on the road to Damascus…

There is only you, dammit, you and Marlene,

And...where are you going?

So it's now only me.

Only me and Marlene

And I think, maybe that’s how it needed to be

at the end of it all, Marlene and me.

Die Freudlose Gasse 

Underneath the lamplight on die Freudlose Gasse

On the dirty side of midnight in a lacerated town

Wearing this pale, ghostly face for my public

But the gazes have gone, the stares no longer linger

No one falls in love with a Berlin girl now

For the cracks start to show in this old showgirl paint

As the Domino Cabaret’s carcass decays.

No more footlights, or welcoming spotlights,

The only lights now that I see are all red

Like my eyes, when I stare in the looking glass fragments

Before I let out my breath and I’m lost in the fog.

And all of the men here have teeth like knives

And all the women pronounce judgement with their feet,

Crossing the road to avoid me like vermin

There’s no more dancing, and no more kicking, unless

It’s horizontal, in the throes of a desperate tryst

And I gain another few Marks – most on my skin

But some in my hand, so there’s bed and some liquor for one night at least.

I’m Penthesilea in love with Achilles,

Brunnhilde galloping her final ride

And Lulu, my sister, she did what she did

I was there myself too, a flame for the moths.

And there’s a killer on the loose, so I hear them all say – 

What he does to those women is beyond comprehension.

Love and death are my only certainties.

Love I once had, and I threw it aside

And though it takes many forms, death is no more a terror

Now grinning skulls in greatcoats stamp the city streets all night.

And there’s hate and fear aplenty dressed in shiny leather boots…

Ah, guten abend, mein Herr.

Interessieren Sie sich für etwas Spaß?

Let me offer this flesh, take my neck, or my heart

The cardiac wiring that short-circuited my dreams

Tear it all out, like biological bunting

Tangled and knotted for a long bloody mile.

Bring that knife closer, let’s talk about art

How you want to open up a new spatial dimension

Let’s see what the knife can do for us both.

Make your mark in red from my groin to my throat

Tease out these guts, all the whole 9 yards,

While you kiss me and tell me I’m a beautiful corpse

Like some enlightenment, anatomical Venus

But one made of flesh, hair and blood, not of wax.

I’ve opened up everything else to this city,

So why not the innards, the final taboo

You can philosophize my dissection while I’m gurgling my last.

Ah! The bloody police…so who is it now, 

Oh, good evening there, officers. 

A murderer at large – well, you don’t you say?

Better go off and find him. This man’s my uncle.

We were only taking a walk, to talk about art.

And not decadent art, I assure you, of course.

… Let’s go. There’s a spot up this sidestreet I think will suit us just fine.

Weimar, Schmeimar...

Fell in love with a Berlin girl so many years ago

Strange to think how many things since then have come and quickly gone.

As Mr Hitler warred, and went,

and everyone was left quite bent

so out of shape, we thought we’d never

even write poetry again.

Yet, here we are.

A people scattered – we refugees.

We left the city on its knees

and fled, like all the lucky ones

Across the sea – all hail Manhattan.

Then one day, some day

I saw her, somewhere

Standing on a smoky backlit stage

She was on the path to self destruct,

I mean, man – she was really fucked

I grabbed her and I took her home with me.

She told me of the path she’d wandered

Prostitution, drugs, time squandered

How she almost ended up impaled

or, so she says...in vague detail

like a butterfly, in some entomologist’s case.

But it’s 1952, and – hey!

We’re in the land of opportunity

And every night, we dance together

To those old songs that brought us hither

And knock back whiskey, telling tales

of the nymphs and satyrs of the Domino house

Just down the road from the old White Mouse.

But all those days have gone, my friend

And while I hate to come across as picky -

The fun has fizzled, liberty’s been redefined -

The only mouse around here is Mickey.

Prosit.