Jill Rees: Welcome Press

It took me a while to call you
By your proper name Wien.
I used to call you Vienna.
Like Vienna schnitzel
And Wienerwald in the days
When I still saw Kafka’s eyes
Everywhere I went,
Skulking round the Haus des Meeres
Eying the Kokoschkas,
Peering from behind the
Cafe window, tutting at
Chocolate cake and
Fighting against the system,
Knowing we wouldn’t win.
At the station
60 kilometres from Vienna
I had to ask
Is this the Vienna train
And the man laughed
And shouted Wien Wien
You are not what you seem.
Can anyone love you more than I do?

I packed my case again
For I am a stranger
And a rambler.
I made love to you
One last time, kicking
My boots against the pines,
Scowled at the Schoenbrunn
As I passed on the tram,
I hated the Empire
And the children wide-eyed
Telling me about their
One-vote parliament
And I wheeled my case
Along the cobbles,
Into the number 78
To the Sudbahnhof.
Suddenly the blue hollow eyes,
Uncurious, unassuming, gazed
Once more at the traveller.
But when I travel now I am
Forever exile.
Sometime I wonder if
Everyone in Wien must be
An exile, it seems the mean,
Freud and Schoenberg, and can I
Please have a plot in the
Zentralfriedhof cemetery with the
Exiles if I am dead when I return.

Here the air is hot, I stifle
To breathe, I wave a fan
And drink lukewarm water
And I dream of frost and
Scurrying into the Aida bar,
And long for gloves and hats
And murmur in my sleep,
Pronouncing your name correctly.
Wien,Wien.

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Tags: Chocolate, dirty old town, Rain, Travel, War