Looking German Poem by Robert Dawson

Looking German

Walking and walking on classical soil,
I feel like Goethe,
enormous, metaphysical, blond,
playing coy in his notebooks with Venetian whores …
"Venice, if you had girls like your canals
with cunts like your back alley swills …"
Pitchy and unswimmable,
the water under the Rialto Bridge …
I've a wife and a timetable.
A street sleeper catches me
faking engrossment for his benefit.
"Deutsch! " He clutches his cast-off camel coat
and brandishes a dinner fork like a bayonet.
Am I purge minded? What can I say? I run.

Another day, pastel chemical fog
from Ravenna's ten-year industrial compound
which houses its workers American-style on steam heat floors
swirls in the brick-built Roman apse
where mosaics illuminate
even the emperor's Byzantine three-days' growth of beard.
Children in bluejeans booting a soccer ball
chant "Deutschland! Deutschland! " when I pass.
My people live in tract homes and seldom wear suits.
Do I look like I want to change things? Even in America
I'd be hated for what I hate.