Different Germany

The lights are down in Germany

and Germany is closed to me

different somehow this time.

The airport's stiff, cold corridors

ring empty beats through hollow feet

that I find to be mine.

Different Germany.

History repeats somehow.

Different Germany.

Afraid to know you now.

And past my eyes with leathered gaze

stare clean-cut boys all dressed as men

in sharpened uniform.

Who turned the clock? (Moved on or back)

And what dark chill is gathering still

before the storm.

Out in the street a tableau double-glazed

with laughing girls whose fastened smiles

are clearly not meant for me.