Linda Rose Parks
The Berlin cruise boat
Mulling over the usual defeats, I'm mooching
past the Oxo Tower when strains of Die Moldau
spill over the Thames with lights from the dining car:
grand piano, cello, violins ... Welcome,
my friends who sail the waterways, wie geht es Ihnen?
White tables, cups in zwiebelmuster, jewellery
and smart frocks. Ah, how quickly I'm losing my few
words of German - I've never even seen the Elbe
or the Brandenburger Tor, chariots flying.
Now chairs scrape, people moving to the dance-floor
as a waltz strikes up, building to a seamless glide
behind glass. And there's Herr Mullemann, his coat
tails flying! Dancing like a man in good health:
Eleonore, listening closely to the music and Dieter,
half-way through a Marlborough ...
wonder if he still listens to Tom Waits?
Even my Ex is here; his gaze drifts over and
he's smiling; off the booze he's found new love.
The whole room is filling with faces of passengers
and in their midst I can see me, lit with the genius
of language; laughing, speaking fluent German
in a life I've abandoned. This woman turns to me
and waves and now the orchestra's starting up, trailing
a slow lead-in on violins. I navigate the half-
crossed, half-dismantled borders and it comes to me
as the boat's passing: how nothing is ever really lost:
no hope, no effort of love, left off or broken,
which can't be rescued in the secret currents; party
streamers, lights flaring, or just a gentle piece of music.
We continue to arrive.
past the Oxo Tower when strains of Die Moldau
spill over the Thames with lights from the dining car:
grand piano, cello, violins ... Welcome,
my friends who sail the waterways, wie geht es Ihnen?
White tables, cups in zwiebelmuster, jewellery
and smart frocks. Ah, how quickly I'm losing my few
words of German - I've never even seen the Elbe
or the Brandenburger Tor, chariots flying.
Now chairs scrape, people moving to the dance-floor
as a waltz strikes up, building to a seamless glide
behind glass. And there's Herr Mullemann, his coat
tails flying! Dancing like a man in good health:
Eleonore, listening closely to the music and Dieter,
half-way through a Marlborough ...
wonder if he still listens to Tom Waits?
Even my Ex is here; his gaze drifts over and
he's smiling; off the booze he's found new love.
The whole room is filling with faces of passengers
and in their midst I can see me, lit with the genius
of language; laughing, speaking fluent German
in a life I've abandoned. This woman turns to me
and waves and now the orchestra's starting up, trailing
a slow lead-in on violins. I navigate the half-
crossed, half-dismantled borders and it comes to me
as the boat's passing: how nothing is ever really lost:
no hope, no effort of love, left off or broken,
which can't be rescued in the secret currents; party
streamers, lights flaring, or just a gentle piece of music.
We continue to arrive.
Linda Rose Parkes lives in Jersey, is published in magazines and anthologies, and has won various prizes such as Blue Nose Poet of the Year.
Page(s) 6
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The