Different Germany

The lights are down in Germany
and Germany is closed to me
different somehow this time.
The airport’s stiff, cold corridors
ring empty beats through hollow feet
that I find to be mine.

Different Germany.
History repeats somehow.
Different Germany.
Afraid to know you now.

And past my eyes with leathered gaze
stare clean-cut boys all dressed as men
in sharpened uniform.
Who turned the clock? (Moved on or back)
And what dark chill is gathering still
before the storm.

Out in the street a tableau double-glazed
with laughing girls whose fastened smiles
are clearly not meant for me.