Faster driver - releasing clutch

He appeared through a swathe of gray-ash fog

that buried a city up to the rooflines

on a late unsettling autumn day

the conductor - Maestro Silvio-tone -

in hotel 5-star elegance

was shoe shined stiff-

white-collar shirted

precisely shaved, notecase fat

and broad felt hat

the gloved-up fists

in leatherette kids . . .

. . . he requested me

in a guttural Sprache

to conduct him to the terminal schnell

where the warmed-up jets are whining

away in the Flugbahn fog

and banking away

on the gold-tipped clouds

- now there shall be no going back -

he grinned when he said

the broadsheet press was on the case

and then

when he left

he slipped me the notes

- a bisserl Trinkgeld!

for all the trouble

______

gw2011