The train rattled down to the station in Bonn,
The laughter was faded, the bookings were gone.
I limped up the stairs to my telephone flat,
With a sprained, aching knee and a battered old hat.

Hans Schnier, the tumbler, the fallen buffoon,
Whose slapstick had soured beneath the gray moon;
A heir to brown coal and a fortune untold,
Who fled from their parlors of hypocrite gold.

My sister Henriette was tossed to the flak,
When the Nazi crusade was already off track;
Now Mother plays hostess to brotherhood’s cause,
While hoarding her marks behind sanctified laws.

I sit in the cold with the receiver in hand,
And dial the great pillars of church and the land.
Through the hum of the wire I can smell every vice:
Their brandies, their colognes, their hearts made of ice.

For Marie was stolen, the breath of my heart,
The only true grace in my vagabond art.
For five quiet years she had slept by my side,
My lover, my partner, my un-wedded bride.

Till the Catholics whispered and turned her astray,
To barter our love for the orthodox way.
They pointed to Tzüpfner, successful and neat,
To buy her a parish, a ring, and a seat.

Because I refused to sign down with a pen
That my children be raised by their dogma and men,
She fled from our bedroom, our laughter, our bread,
To sleep in a blessed and legitimate bed.

Now Tzüpfner parleys with prelates in Rome,
While I nurse my migraine, abandoned at home.
Each friend that I telephone offers advice,
A lecture on morals, but never the price.

The pockets are empty, the schnapps is run dry,
No family or churchman will answer my cry.
Their post-war prosperity glitters so bright,
While sweeping the stench of the past out of sight.

So I pick up the chalk and I whiten my skin,
To show them the sorrow that festers within;
A mime doesn't perish in shadows and shame—
He plays out the drama and answers his name.

I pick up my broken guitar from the hall,
And leave the grim flat and the telephone wall.
I sit on the steps of the bustling train gate,
To mock the whole nation and challenge my fate.

With my cap on the pavement to gather their dimes,
I’ll sing for the travelers, the frauds, and their crimes;
And wait for the platform to rattle and foam,
If Marie should step from the sleeper from Rome.

× × ×

A clown in the winter, a beggar in white,
The only clean mirror in Germany's night.
They bought their salvation and covered their sin,
While he strums on the curb where the truths must begin.