Zwischen Alexanderplattz und Seestraße

Because this is a blog about what I'm doing now, I will generally refrain from posting anything from the past but I will have to make an exception here. I've been taking a creative writing class here at the University of Georgia and I wrote the following poem from an old picture I took during my exchange year in Germany. The photo was taken with my point and shoot camera, not my D70, and I don't consider it an example of my photography, but with that disclaimer I'll still post it to help people understand the poem better. Just so you know, none of my classmates will be able to see the picture so try to imagine what this is before you see the photo.

Zwischen Alexanderplattz und Seestraße

Deep beneath the city the ground is alive.
Alive with the blurred faces of those below,
frozen in their silent animation.
Alive in the way their eyes shimmer,
squinting in an unsuccessful effort to regain composure,
every lip curled up, soft smiling mouths, revealing rows of gleaming teeth.

Alive in the way their torsos lurch back and forth,
heaving and rolling like an elephant on a waterslide,
slipping and sliding like a hungry puppy, bolting across an oaken floor,
Alive they are together, like the arteries and veins inside a clinched fist,
Alive like the blood rushing through its vessels: the cities vessels.
Together we ride, listing back and forth, listening to the silent roar of time frozen still.

Time, once frozen, ceases to exist but life...
Life exists in every fit of laughter, and in every sprawling mass of flesh and blood.
Life exists in memories long forgotten and in dark photographs, burned around the edges,
moth eaten holes where the faces should have been.
This city is alive, I know because I was there.
I have felt it. We have felt it.

So I know this photo is blurry but if you had been there you would know why. All of the people you see are from the same exchange program as I. After our entire year in Germany, and everything we had been through, all 52 of us met in Berlin for our end of year meeting. Saying goodbye is hard but if you have to do it, you should go out with a bang. Most specifically, this photo was taken on the U-bahn (subway) in Berlin. We had been out all night and on the way home, something happened, and I don't think any of us know exactly what but all of a sudden it was pandemonium. We went crazy. Everyone was laughing and yelling, falling down and running into each other as the train hurtled around curves. All the Germans in our traincar left appalled but I wouldn't have had it any other way. Look at the faces and you will see.