Where seagulls cry, and Zeppelins used to fly, among decrepid houses once in style, wooden boarded and turreted in reminder of days done, and gone, he ran from forests where branches stabbed him in the back and sunsets waited for half a year to perform.

This used to be the Soviet Union. Now the bullets in the market place lie next to busts of Lenin and no-one's on parade, not even the goose-stepping ex-SS who only appear one day a year when leaves are pushed aside for an airbrushed past when heroes wore grey uniforms and everyone spoke German.

Cobblestoned streets wind their way around bars where I can get you anything, man. Cannabis, striptease, assassination and a tickets from cops for crossing when the light shines wrong.

Those fucking Brits piss on statues and the Latvians shun the piercing cold and then its summer, and eveything grows, maybe even my nose.

It was me that ran from the forest when the branches came tumbling down. But the pagan gods understood, didn't they, and showed me the way with a lightning bolt or two into my favourite bar, where after a beer the waitress does tricks that bear no witness.

under the pines

of the endless forests

I scribble some notes

about a country that left me

 now all I have is beer