Sonnet for a new decade
in which nostalgia threatens
The twenties’ decade was the Roaring Twenties.
One danced the Charleston at the gangsters’ ball.
A future gleamed, nostalgia – above all
Lili Marleen with endlessly long panties.
The false stab-in-the-back-myth then gave birth
to longing for authoritarian rule.
To Rome marched fresh-washed hordes, their faces cruel.
One practised for the holocaust on earth.
For this new century I have been born
a century too soon. Excitedly I wait
to see what I may come to witness here.
The pub’s nostalgics I hear loudly warn,
their shrill cries their fat guts yet more dilate.
A brand-new age may cause some pain, I fear.
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