Hidden amongst East Berlin sprawl
The epitomy of static stealth
A prison walled-off from a city
That was walled-off from the world
Through breathless, vice-grip summers
Through biting, howling winters
For year upon uniformed year
No knowledge of her existence
It was only the birds that knew
Only the birds that flew
Above her heavy unmarked roofs
And swooped into her shingle yard

The people clasped in ignorance
Plodding streets with no route in
In a city of streets with no way out
And where curiosity was sin
Her Gun-grey octagonal watch-towers
And high barbed concrete walls
Could hardly raise suspicion
In a time and place where basic trust
Had become a fabled act of fiction

Boom gates, road-blocks, sentry guards
Preserved her from detection
Whilst incarcerated deep within
Screamed the plotters of defection
Sat on hard, cold, milking stools
With spot-lamps trained like prowling dogs
On their brave defiant expressionless faces
Eyes burnt red from sleep deprivation
And from stern, pragmatic interrogation
Repeated questions, blackmails, threats
" Your chance to see the light of day "
" Strike a deal with us, the only way "

This was where the files were opened
Where steel doors slammed and locked
Where buckled souls would curl and weep
Their hopes of freedoms clocked and blocked
Broken wills in Stasi torture chambers
Black and dank, the smell of fear
Ice cold waters to the neck
Barefoot agonies on sharp-ridged floors
And walk-cages, circuit after circuit
One man cracks and pounds the walls
Sliding to the blood and vomit-stained floors
" Never....get....out "
" Never....get....out! "

Still standing post-Wall, post-regime
A museum now, a testimony
But somewhere in the Mitte district
Ex Stasi Officer sits haunted by his phone
Plays back the message again and again
Computerised voice chills him to the bone
With poetic reminder of the life he led back then

' We the besieged are reopening doors
To blackened holes with sharpened claws
These lives are scarred, and you shall learn
As we lie in wait for your return
Where the air is thick with vengeful spores
Unanswered questions and unsettled scores
We the faceless are reopening doors
To blackened holes with shapened claws. '