River Basin. 7:45pm.

The silence hums like the signal of a forgotten lover

Dragging on a last stick in Checkpoint Charlie winter.

I tell myself it is more noble and less ardous to ponder

This armada of a hundred cameras trained on still water

Gazing at long yellow lights fingering this beachless shore

From stately towers and mansions that call to us for more

Who burn these lights that legions seek to click?

What are their loves and dreams, what do they seek?

By bright day, the questions give way to mighty hearts

Sleek bodies urging wood onwards through sweaty curtains

The deep, the liquid, the fellowship of organs of conquest.

Muscles tighten, then loosen, then tighten, then loosen

While the great bellows below skin and bone gasp to let out

And then let in what may will famished oars to survive.

Now after dusk, hurried passions of sunlit youth surrender

In dark cool, to ageing, to waiting, to another kind of victory.

Checkpoint Charlie or this River Basin; artist, spy or sentry

It has always been this way in places drained by history.