We Built This City

In The Analogue Kitchen, it is 1985:

on Forces Radio, Knopfler’s international pub band

is moving microwave ovens,

whilst mine ticks to a final buzz,

defrosting rump-steak liberated from a vast cellar

far below the Airmens’ Mess,

food deep frozen against a second Berlin Blockade

that will never come.

The DJ drivels.

The record changes.

In my head, there are voices; accented Russian,

pilots - born in Tallinn or Tomsk - Talk-Talk,

“It’s my life, don’t you forget…”

I am exhorted to check my vehicle,

before every trip to work or leisure.

I’ve cracked another NAAFI-bought tube.

Soundtrack: another one-hit-wonder from down under,

so catchy and insistent that Me-Mark-Page

is ruining the moment at 500 miles remove.

All Radio Jocks are Jagger in their dreams.

Maybe I should make a vegemite sandwich, instead.

Out of the window, the sports field is deserted,

It could be Laarbruch or Brüggen,

instead of the City of the Bear

- but for the lack of Allied Jets

doing test runs on the ground.

I laugh as I remember:

our leafy outpost in the DDR*

is called Butlitz by those in the BRD.**

The double-glazing rattles as Marxwalde MiGs

break the sound barrier, East Germany’s toy Air Force

piloting Soviet cast-offs in a show of independence.

Marconi is playing a snake,

I’m listening to the radio,

We built this city on Rock and Roll.

Footnotes:

* Demokratische Deutsche Republik               East Germany

** Bundesrepublik Deutschland                      West Germany