Hippel’s Wine Bar
we sat in Hippel’s wine bar,
among patron plebs and pipe smoke
smack bang in Berlins bubbling brain city center.
spilling beer and oozing brain juice
our table filled with the cool dudes,
young Hegelians spewing god-like genius
and drunkenly puking bits of bratwurst.
multitasking Marx was playing darts
throwing hammers, sickles and logic out the window
while Napoleon snowballed the odds
of the next elected dictator on the open farm complex.
the Bauer brothers and Strauss got heated
debating which myth was better:
Jesus, Zeus or perhaps even Hegel
the eventual bar brawl bursting through the saloon doors
onto Berlin’s streets.
passing postmen and capitalists watched in disbelief
—they wouldn’t get it -
our superior intellectual capacity made us the gods
of Hippel’s wine bar and all of 19th century uncivil society.
