A Ghostlike Cross Songtext
von Fall in Green

Vater Walter humours in 1928
As he peers over spectacles
Teeth clenching a tobacco-less pipe
Black umbrella as a cane

Bow-tied Tante Henny looks adoringly at Walter
A blonde fezzed doll with open arms
Cuddle me, stiffly
Slots into her top pocket
Like a strategically placed
Wedding handkerchief

Caped Freida shows her blackened teeth
Nasenklammer perched on nose′s edge
Like Red Riding Hood's grandmother
Or the Gingerbread Hag
Eyes off kilter
Patterned scarf framing frozen kindness


Mutti, aged three, sits on Freida′s knee
Distracted
What is she looking at?
Was this before her mental illness?
Was it the war to come that made her ill?
The rat nightmares?
Was it hereditary? What was Freida like?
Was it because of what happened to Onkel Karl?
A ghostlike cross
Captured by an unknown cameraman

Who are they? Were? You?
Who are we?
Whose apple thou art?

Family strangers, yet familiar
Through a few handed down tales
And photographs to guess from

Slotted into Onkel Karl's top pocket
Is it a white tea strainer?
He clasps his fingers into one giant hand
Which fences in his torso
Trapped

His dour passport face reflects
A hint of fated path

A ghostlike cross
A premonition

Captured
They cut off his legs in the war