Sunday Morning Coming Up

by Mark Terrill

Sunday morning coming up out of the subway in Berlin
the last shreds of lucidity torn away from the streets
not far from the Alexanderplatz —
consciousness being redefined by the parameters of
a toxic hangover in which Russian vodka, Afghani hashish,
fractured memories of a bad Johnny Cash cover band
and a lousy poetry reading are all playing major roles —
the transcendencies now locked in a cruelly designed
holding pattern, constantly consternating —
beginning to understand the hapless ratios
for the very first time this time around —
someone wants to peddle you something and
someone else wants to take it away from you,
like that lovely old whore over there
with the garish make–up and that Helen of Troy haircut —
they say she was around when Picasso painted Guernica.