There are no more border guards
In the palace of tears
No bugging devices
No eavesdropping spies
Trying to find out if you're defecting
To the decadent West.

Now you can rent a car
Drive it to Moscow or Milan
Buy gift wrapped chocolate
Tread on marble floors
Extract your cash from a swift machine
In the palace of tears

Bodies which together
Seemed so light
Floating above each other
Here take flight
Hearts unravelling like barbed wire
In the palace of tears

I could say to myself
Time spent together goes so fast
Before we know it -
So will the time apart
Me waiting in arrivals
You coming through the gate

But the airline soap removes your smell
I can't remember the last few days at all
Like dipping my pen in frozen ink
Or touching fingers
Through frosted glass
In the palace of tears

Peter Jukes, Traenenpalast Berlin 1999

The Traenenpalast (Palace of Tears) is now a theatre. However, this was once the site of real-life dramas... The Traenenpalast was part of a border checkpoint when the city of Berlin was divided, and the glass and metal pavilion was named after the tearful partings between visitors from the West and citizens of the East who had to stay behind.