Notes on the Weimar Republic

The maimed and broken on every street.

Wheelchairs.Masks over missing faces.

Dark glasses to conceal blinded eyes.


Smooth,pastel and starkly elegant,

The Einstein Tower spirals up among trees,

From the mind of a frontline soldier,

Beauty he had dreamed of in the trenches,

To stimulate and soothe.The revolution

Has no borders,no limits,no states;

All peoples play as one, like children.

A princely observatory for the study

Of light. Perfect equation of energy and mass.


Light and geometry merge in the lens,

Moholy-Nagy leaning out of a high window

To photograph the street below.


In the cabarets regimented lines of girls

Dance with Prussian paradeground precision,

Kicking their long muscled legs in unison.

Naked male gymnasts exercise by the lake,

Proud descendants of the ancient Greeks,

Purged and affirmed by sun and water.