Lily Marlene was her name,
her voice a mix of love and smoke.
Me drawn to her like moths to flame
out on the sidewalk drunk and broke.
Just in the nick of time the bell
of the Charlottenburg town crier
alerted me, I rushed to tell
my love to her, but then the fire
of busted gas mains had involved
the Pub and all the people in it,
they were, like me, so soon engulfed
to die, it took just one long minute.
Herbert Nehrlich
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-end-of-lily-marlene/
