Diary

In Praise of Older Streets #BerlinDiary September 11

/ Sisyphus47 / Leave a comment

dsc_0188

We love the cobbled streets, the antique gas lamps. The older city still resists the onslaught of developers and speculators, the “Gentrifizierung” brigade, and it has allies. Yesterday, cycling our way from the Alex to Kollwitzplatz, and the charms of Prenzlauer Berg, we admired the contrasts, the moving groups, the bon-chic-bon-genre façon Berlin. And we enjoyed the ice-cream…

Closer home, back in proletarian Wedding, the new city remains loyal to its history, its heroes, and through the rumble of traffic, its wonderful parks and small lanes, its lakes. This the rough and tumble life of a city that has now grown back to its population of 1944: yes, 1944.

So, we too, remember 2001 and the victims, on the day, and ever since, of the wars that followed. Bless the cities that are reborn from the ruins.

Photo: Petra Flemming, Porträt Käthe Kolwitz, 1985, Stadt Museum, Berlin (“Stadt der Frauen”)

 

Longing #exit #City

/ Sisyphus47 / Leave a comment
Deutscher Dom, Gendarmen Markt

Deutscher Dom, Gendarmen Markt

 

Maybe one day we will miss the fog, the infernal traffic, the idiotic media, the inept politics… Of course, you might say it’s the same over there. I smile. It can’t be, and even if it were I long for the new, not the old.

We want to ride through the tree-lined streets, in a city where riding is the way to see, to go places. We want to visit the angels, the memorials to heroes, all the history of centuries past, to hear their tales, their longing too. We want to buy our meals at the corner of busy lanes, on markets overflowing with the richness of the South, sit in small cafés listening to jazz, building in our minds a limitless future.

Maybe we want even more, who knows, this is Faust’s city…

A wall, and a tower #BerlinDiary, July 10

/ Sisyphus47 / Leave a comment

IMG_20160705_204456299

In my street the only trace of the Mauer is the brass inscription on the pavement. All round everything is new: Berlin is being rebuilt, or renovated, but trees also are planted, here in Mitte, and elsewhere in this fascinating city. In the evening a fine rain started, veiling the profile of the television tower, built in the DDR days, and one the vantage points of the city (I prefer the monument to the victories of 1814-15 in Viktoria Park.)

I went earlier in an exploration of the centre, from the Columbiadamm in Tempelhof, the Alte Jacobsstraße, in Kreuzberg, to Seestraße in Wedding. To get a sense of who the city really is, one has to walk, or cycle. There is a lot of this in perspective…

Landmarks, in stone or time, are everywhere. 17 June, the Landwehr Kanal, Museeumsinsel, Kennedy’s speech at the Schöneberg Rathaus… An eagle still stands proudly on the façade of the old airport building in Tempelhof, on Luftbrückeplatz…

Struggle #TheDailyPost

/ Sisyphus47 / Leave a comment

Prompt idea by wittywheelz

tumblr_o55q1amh6o1ql9g7po1_540

 

The rain falls, ceaselessly, ruining the roses, saturating the mild air of a rotten English summer… Soon we’ll be able to grow rice in the garden, and forget about cutting the hay for weeks to come.

Yet the fight continues. We have to continue the search, avoiding the traps laid out by greed and stupidity. Not that the outcome will change much. “They” will still be there, with their pump and ceremonies, their tax vultures, their “experts”, and, of course, their oligarchs masquerading as politicians, or is it the reverse?

Yet we have hope. I know the City awaits us, observing, amused, the signs of struggle…

Image source: norsestore.com

From Suburbia to the Centre, and back again #amwriting

/ Sisyphus47 / Leave a comment

IMG_20160602_103623008

Planning a move is exciting, and also threatening. So much can go awry, the unexpected lurks at every corner. We have inhabited this parcel of suburbia for a long time, longer than we originally thought, for sure. And, now, we are about to leave this bit of the funny island for  the city of Faust, right in the middle!

We found, hopefully, the place, where to live, to dream, to love, to write… and to wander. More than a room, with a view. All the signs are there: the path through the urban, and ancient, gardens, the waterfall, the dark, deep waters of the canal… the bikes everywhere.

Not far is the river, the few remnants of the old wall, the new shiny skyscrapers: the fight with the Devil, who’s alive, and determined. The new book has a title, and a hero, more mature, a little bruised, and loving it. There is a diary to keep, and the photoblog.

In the meantime, we still have the city of Moloch, to enjoy. Later, we’ll be back. Peace.

Image: Engelbecken (Angel’s Pool), Berlin Kreuzberg, © 2016 Honoré Dupuis

 

Low Light #HolocaustMemorialDay

/ Sisyphus47 / 1 Comment

DSC_0428

 

The Atlantic rain hammers the windows, in the grey skies the birds are still, hesitant.

Is it the impossible memory, the fear to forget, to ignore, someday to face the nightmare, in our lives?

Those who deny, wrote Primo Levy, are ready to start again. Is it possible?

But then we know, in our time, not that far from us.

We look at the sky, the fast fleeing clouds, we hear the rumble of the city. We think of the long war, the fight for survival. Is this peace an illusion?

Yesterday we saw snowdrops on the edge of the woods, near the valley we love. The earth lives on.

Despite everything we do.

Photo: Käthe Kollwitz’ Pietà, Berlin Neue Wache, Unter den Linden, © 2014 Honoré Dupuis

Ambushed

/ Sisyphus47 / 1 Comment

tumblr_o04oukbq0g1ues1b6o1_540

 

I know they are there, well hidden, but making sure I am aware of their presence, just in case I was about to forget. This is tyranny, being on an apparent lose leach, but one that can be shortened at no notice: suddenly the pain, the endless despair.

I see a glimmer of blue in the sky. No frost last night. There is hope in the air.

How long will it take? I know they are expert at rearguard actions too. Signs of withdrawal  can be deceptive! Like this weather, it can move swiftly back to ice and doom.

Marking time, observing, solace in sleep.

Spring will come.

Image: Max Clarenbach

Multitude

/ Sisyphus47 / 2 Comments

Rotavirus Reconstruction

 

They land in waves, silent and lethal. It starts with this crippling feeling in the arms, the shoulders, then the vice at the back of the neck. The throat is soon paralysed, breathing becomes a struggle.

Soon the only respite is sleep, assisted by Codeine. Their numbers are beyond mathematics: maleficent molecules to the end of the world… They need no rest.

But where do they come from? They resist everything, there is no treatment, only time.

The world smells and tastes different: one is inhabited, the alien bodies have taken charge. Their weapons, suffocation and pain, a diluted slow death.

Each morning begs the question: when will they withdraw? But they are in no hurry. The host, weakened into lethargy, is powerless, the flesh submissive.

Maybe, this time, they will stay?

Image: Rotavirus reconstruction, ​English Wikipedia user GrahamColm [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons