Lately I have taken to just staring from my window

Looking down at Prague that spreads beneath me like a table

Watching all the workers hurry home down Hermanova

Carried like the leaves that fall in thrall to cold October

There’s no food but maybe I can call on Mr Bobel

Has he something I can eat I’ll… I’ll see him right tomorrow

But he’ll make me talk and try to walk me though my past

Years ago he watched the screen and longed to hear my laugh

For I am Ossi Oswalda

The oyster princess

The silent screen diva

All rise for Ossi Oswalda

The star who wished that she could be a man

But no one knows now who I am

The walls are weeping with the damp, the room’s hushed like a coma

The only voices I can hear are ghosts no one remembers

How the hunger bites beneath my fading, greying skin

See this German Mary Pickford: bitter, cold and thin

For I am Ossi Oswalda

The oyster princess

The silent screen diva

All rise for Ossi Oswalda

The star who wished that she could be a man

But no one knows now who I am

Ossi Oswalda….          Ossi… Die Stumm Film Diva (repeat)

© Words and music by Michael Anthony Heath 2017