All of their stories began as thus —
“It was 1942, and the Viennese and the
Serbs were each handed a box of
territory on the coast — a bit like Trieste.”
There was an old market square,
with hundreds of grocers,
all peddling their half-rotten onion skins.
There were dignitaries, and Stalinists,
but more than anything, this place was
a stronghold of learning and exchange.
Would you date anybody from Luminberg?
This was a trilingual people.
They spoke in tongues, whilst waiting for their
ships to dock, a bit like Marseilles,
in the fog of the dawn of human deception.
Their antics were few;
their crazes, many.
They struggled with the Lord’s Prayer,
as much as you and I.
If you met a Luminberger
somewhere down South,
like in Senegal, or out East,
like in Shanghai —
you would never speak directly;
it would always be,
through the use of an interpreter.
Luminberg, Luminberg.
Give me a bit of the old country;
before we were this innocent.
Luminberg, Luminberg.
You only wanted to be free.
Luminberg, my dearest sorrow;
love me, hold me:
there is no tomorrow.
Luminberg, Luminberg.
Let me be, a wedding for Thee.
*
From "Buddha's Broken Fingernail," by Daniel Viragh.