The muttering undergrowth of Hamburg

I charge my wine to my room.
The staff ask me if it satisfactory.
I repeat some acceptable formula
to express my contentment.

The lobby pianist mangles
a series of reassuringly recognisable tunes:
standards, movie themes, nothing that risks
a genuinely emotional response.
No one expects too much,

but more than this,
more than what the undergrowth tells me,
the muttering undergrowth of Hamburg.

I go for a stroll by the Außenalster.
It's not fireflies in the bushes.
Cheap high brightness LEDs
pilfered from a market
illuminate that futile university
among the soggy sleeping bags
from which we graduate in death.

The undergrowth mutters under its breath
as it reads to itself: Goethe, Sartre,
or some ghost written celebrity bio,
whatever could be lifted easily
from the library, or the discount bookstore
where remaindered stock is sold,
but not to them,
not to these remaindered people:
their currency is theft
backed by the bank of midnight death.

I can't see faces. The undergrowth
becomes suddenly aware of my presence,
and falls silent, then an arm is thrust out,
and another, and another,
and a hollow howling hopeless plea is made,
wilting with generations of dissappointment,
begging me in a thousand languages I don't understand,
but I understand perfectly what they say,
and they describe me perfectly
when I walk away.

I charge my wine to my room.
The staff ask me if it satisfactory.
I repeat some acceptable formula
to express my contentment.