Ian Macneill: Prague In the Twenties

Blue fireworks cascade from the overhead line
as a tram turns sharply
into another crowded street,
silk stockings and headache-bands
catch the sun.
The old murmuring of string band waltzes
has a wooden sandy edge so now
we charleston closer to the gramophone horn
to reassure ourselves of its always distant call.

We are floating on the spoils of a lost empire.

Vienna?
Berlin rather,
with UFA and Pabst
but we may at last be here, in our Czechoslovakia,
where ideas flower along the electric vine
as we wait in cafes for that new wine
we are assured will come in those new bottles.