Walk Along the Berlin Wall
by Aimee Mackovic
In Berlin once there was a brick wall
carving the city in two, a knife
through the heart of a country, the heart
of its people, the heart of a world.
From 1961-1989, a thick wall of bricks
said more than any fevered king ever had, crying
you can't go there, quit your snivelling crying
or else. Barbed wire adorned the top of the wall
keeping everyone on their side of the bricks.
Over 5,000 attempted escape, nothing but a knife
and the sweaty clothes on their back. The world
consumed the over 100 who died. It is said a heart
can physically break from pain. How many hearts
were lost? How many died before death, left crying?
How many lovers who had made a world
of themselves were left with empty hands? The wall
was 77 miles of no, towers with guns and knives
at the ready. To many, the wall was not brick.
It was the layering of a philosophy, like stacked bricks,
It was the deliberate calcification of one's heart
for the “greater good,” a new Germany, the gentle knifing
of a collective spirit, a will that brushed off crying
and laughter, those pesky mosquitoes, on one side of the wall.
The sun blazed and baked down upon two different worlds
for thirty years. In 1987, David Bowie showed the world
its own ugly self at a concert in West Berlin - the bricks
still intact. We can be heroes, he sings, to those over the wall
in East Berlin, to a pulsing, bleeding mob of hearts
who just want to be free, an end to the dulled crying
in their hollow bones. The music was a blistering, thick knife
to the gut. The German word for knife
is das Messer. Yes, we all made a mess of the world.
But, sometimes, the naked act of crying
can cleanse. Sometimes not. Some moments, like bricks,
stiffen in the brain. Some people never master their hearts.
Today, beautiful art covers one side of the fragmented wall.
In the end, knives couldn't keep love from destroying the wall.
A country cried and dripped happy tears onto smashed bricks.
A world bled together, pumping yes through its patched, moaning heart.
Aimee Mackovic is a professor of English and poet living in Austin, TX. Her first full-length poetry collection, Love Junky, will be available as of November 2017 from Lit City Press in Austin, TX. Her two chapbooks, Potpourri and Dearly Beloved: the Prince poems, can be ordered at aimeemackovic.com.