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This poem is taken from PN Review 131, Volume 26 Number 3, January - February 2000.

Three Poems Matthew Mead

Local Colour Seen as Camouflage

Walking about Bad Godesberg
Waiting to die: up the hill
To the woods, through the woods,
Down the hill past the empty shops,
Past the empty department store
- when the government goes
this will be a ghost town
and I shall be a ghost.

Walking through Bad Godesberg
Waiting for death
- 'of which we know nothing' -
Strolling through town
Down the avenue to the river.

If the Rhine were the Styx
I could take the Dollendorfer ferry
...


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