The Exam

To me you died how you lived,
In lines and dots and black curlicues,
Which irrigate that crisp biege desert,
With stories of your achievements,
And of your failings.

And as you stare with copper eyes,
At the meeting of the rivers in Koblenz
Do you pine for your cruises
Along the wide green fjords,
Of the Mitteleuropa you dreamed of?

It seems shameful really,
That Weltpolitik should rest here,
Twenty pfennigs adorn its cold eyes,
As it runs in winding rivers from my pen,
In lines and dots and black curlicues.