A Night with Yoric II A Poem 2010 by Klaus J. Gerken II_1 INTERSECTIONS 1. cuxhaven jan cux stadt am tor zur welt "Rumms! Das gilt der Obrigkeit - "Rumms! Das gilt dem Stetsbereit - "Rumms! Das gilt den Toten all - "Rumms! Das gilt dem Glueckszufall - "Rumms! Das gilt dem Liebeslied - "Rumms! Das gilt der Ewigkeit. Hans Liep & 1957 digny beached near Kugelbarke heavy cumulous clouds hovering this was still is the edge between the Northern Ocean vikings conquered and the Elbe Rome could not in scotland Hadrian's Wall Chauci had the ELBE need no wall Berlin Belfast Palistine Mexico but defend your purpose 3 hafens Alte Liebe Neue Liebe where my father left april 22 1958 where we my mother and me followed him june save year America Hafen carved out of war darkest part of town bars and whores where my father worked and bingo and took me along at midnight own creed laws here were obayed otherwise one punishment code of honour safe hard to accept 60 years on never paranoid as colonial is ottawa 2010 fishermen on a sunny warf sea drenshed wood mending fishnets bingo playing hi's to my father chatting with everyone i never understood how ropes that big could be knotted... these men went out summer fall and winter before the vikings to fish the sholes off newfoundland they weren't discoverors but fishermen discovery was politics fishing was survival columbus needed royalty these only needed wives and mouths to feed and a structure in a small community i'm not going to do maximus here dates and names don't mean a thing history communicates a chain a structure of events like a bent old oak tree across a road sacred well beneith bow to what's begotten in the earth gaia deep begotten of the universe somehow time and place converges not for us but gaia does it's a smile that does not go away where we speculate experiment waste chalk upon a piece of black or force electrons into forms on a computer screen electrons self aware enslaved lower purpose is the cause of our society (2098)lk,l;. higher purpose does not blossom like a fower higher purpose is the gardener strong calloused hands and rationed water * 29 June 2010 and the beach was pristine once full of tar balls and they told us wear sandles (shoes are better don't take chances with the glass 1974 i did not remember it like that sand castles 1954 we ran naked to the waters edge and no one cared dug up cray fish star fish built dug out holding tanks in the soft warm mud and there were no UV warnings and peeling skin was everywhere a game sometimes on a good day you cd see schliewig-holstein and neuewerk where the wagons went at low tide and returned when he moon shifted the ocean again some got stranged in quicksand with tide in rage rolling steamrole in flat bottom boats and salty men who knew what they were doing i don't ever recall a fatality bruised egos there is nothing safe about these waters even children go out there know * 2 Oct 10 "Hier ist, wenn auch nich der Dichter, so doch der Chronist Heine zu korrigieren. Cuxhaven zaelte damals noch keine 5000 Einwohner und ausserdem lebte die Siedlung auch nicht mehr von der Gnade Hamburgs. Die Gemeinde hatte ihren Prinzen gefunden, der den jahrhundertelangen Schlaf beendete: Iin den Jahren 1808-1811 und 1814-1821 war der Buergermeister und Maire von Hamburg, Dr. Amandus Augustust Abendroth, Amtmann auf Schloss Ritzenbuettel." * Photo I There is a panel Der Hafen um 1845. View from the east Tannenhof, Badenhaus, Leuchtturm and Alte Liebe. Woodcut. Wooden ships. Calm sea. Gulls between cracks in the clouds. Wooden sheds. Fishermen. Row boats. A couple watching. And then the same area today from airview. * It's a sound track to a moment how important is it? now? very. but apart. it cuts into the heart. what one does not understand. not u n d e r s t a n d. is how vital this is. is. when churning memories from afar. * Photo II mending nets on the dock. cumulus clouds rising. Boats quiet on the water. Did these before Columbus sail to Newfoudland in search of richer waters? * Photo III cute little girl. chubby cheeks. blond hair blown in gentle breeze. holding beach ball. Sonne - Seewind - Saltwasser - schlick did i know you? you look like a girl down the street from where i lived... i remember the smile. when we played. your eyes smiled. * Photo IV Es ist der Turm. Neuwerk. Am Beginn des 14. Jahrhunderts von Hamburg erbaut... built. 14th century. Neuwerk. on a clear day. and at low tide they hold horse races and horse drawn carts cart tourists there. * Photo V Rathaus. As a boy I remember walking past it with my mother. I remember the flags and the ivy clinging to the walls. I remember the ivy. Cold day it was. Under the arch. I remember that also. But there was no ivy. Just branches like bony fingers clinging desperately to stone. * This is to introduce the town. it doesn't. i must formuate another view of it. from the beach from the river. from the mind. my mind. * when the fog rolls in off the north sea it's sometimes so thick that when it rolls by one side of the street can disappear and the other be in sunshine. and when you extend your arm into it your arm disappears as if cut off. as children, when this happened, we used to play a game of hide and go seek, running in and out. we had to be careful not to run in too far lest we got lost. in the fog you dis- appeared. could not even see yourself. some- times we would hold hands with someone out- side who would lead us down the street or down a field and we didn't know where we were going but always had a trusting hand to guide us there. * in duhnen the mental hospital stood the tallest building in town. near the beach. in the town square where the old well crowned its medieval visage. now dry and filled with garbage. and the hospital is gone. that hospital where anastasia stayed for many years. or anna anderson whichever you prefer. i believe she had a room overlooking the watt to neuwerk and beyond and she would have seen the fog roll in, white and slowly, like a cumulous cloud crawling with defiance over the north sea waters and enveloping the warm beach sand and crawling over den deich and then crawling like vines around the asylum. she must have stood by her window and saw the world disappear. her world. before her eyes -- lingering. * it was a different world, or the same world, but a diffrent time and space. quiet at night. no sirens blurting some impending doom. no cars with remote door locks annoying sleep destroying intrusions. and there was history everywhere. living history. rebuilding history. a new beginning carved from the insanity of war. here it was all peace and quiet and no one cared too much for the recent past. for anastasia her fog was not yet her destiny. she had not yet revieled herself to the world. she was still that woman found. in a fog. lost alone and swept through confusion of a state of grace the world had lost. a grand time still remembered. and in cuxhaven duhnen in an asylum she wove her imperial tapestry. * beach baskets. blinding sun. gulf stream breeze. white hot sand. sea-mud soothing aching feet. children play naked. men and women change naked into beach things. no one minds the other. sand castles built. decorated with sea shells. tourists relaxing. people playing in the swelling waves crested white eagle wings flapping. ships from everywhere in the world far off coming into or coming out of the elbe - river that stopped mighty romans. chauci country - on their way to hamburg. mighty city. reeperbahn. soon beatles. but those too large dock at cuxhaven. neue liebe. where we left for canada. 1958. where many left searching for a new life. my father, a barber, made good there. * even when in the summer with the chill air it was needed to wear a thick sweather. but it was a dry air. the south breezes cleared the humidity, and when it did it was cold. that juxtoposition of sea and air brought the fogs, a blanket, over the city. one renewed oneself. every spring. when the trawlers left for the grand banks of newfoundland. stayed away for months. and when they returned the fish market was all abuzz with traders, buyers, speculators. and the fish stands at almost every corner were open with fresh smoked herring, smoked eel and other delicasies I would buy and bring my father each night he had to work late. i would take bring our spaniel. we had to leave him behind. sadly. when we left june 1958. * my father worked late almost every night. it was rare for him to be home before midnight. barbers shops stayed open in those days till the last customer left and opened early. they closed for two hours in the afternoon, but even closed my father worked, only knowing he might have some time for supper when no new customers could come in. i would visit him after school and was fascinate by the empty display bottles or hair oil or empty tubes of hair cream. and other items. further down the same street was an slaughter house. you could smell death a block away. and on sundays they would wash the blood away to the street drain. i hated that. ever since our landlord chased a sow around the yard downstairs to slaughter for winter sausage. i covered my ears to block the desperate squeals. then death. * one night in 1958 my father took me to the window look up he said pointing to a moving light that's sputnik * and there was christmas. open window. concordia hotel across the cobbled street. sailors singing drunken o du frueliche and stille nacht heilige nacht always at 7pm and we continued that tradition even in canada. i don't do that nowadays. i never play christmas music. in fact i hardly anymore celebrate christmas. it was just so special back then. a recovered memory i not want to chance again. and that night in our garret when the tree caught fire and my father put it out with a pail of water from the sink. the sink we used to piss in when the one toilet in the house between floors was occupied. such where the days. no longer here. and my mother angry but accepted the predicament. * drunken sailors and prostitutes. the harbour was a riot in the night. it exploded into song and sex. sometimes these ladies would escort me and bingo to my father's barber shop late at night to see that we were safe. but safe was not a concern in cuxhaven where doors remained unlocked and children played unaccompanied by adults through the day and sometimes in the darkness of the cobbled almost barron streets. there was no concern, as today that something would happen to them. the neighbors kept a watchful eye. and the drunken sailors were easily put in their place by a slap in the face. it was a time of innocence grown out of tragedy. out of war and hardship. no one wanted to be alone. * when i was three my father too me to the harbour. the alte liebe. and there is a photo of him and me he holding to the railing me pointing at a trawler entering the harbour pointing he wore his wwII trench coat and i remember the captain of the traw- lew waving at us. my father at that time was a night watchman in the darest places of the docks ensuring no one stole or lurked or did any damage. he would go from shed to another and then nspect the trains and then in a dingy inspect the boats and ships once with me there. i remember the darness and the rocking of the boat as we made our way between giant steel moored and rocking in the moons reflection in the water never forgotten in my mind and in my dreams. * my father used to recite heine and took me to a dick and doff movie on sunday afternoons. they were funny. but the afternoon he took me to see pennochio i couldn't understand and left the theatre crying. my father took me home and my mother switched on the radio and i listened intently to the classic music and then identified each piece as it was playing. my parents were astounded. i had never heard this before. and that, or any of the pieces played. it just came to me this was mozart, this was beethoven, this brahms and other pieces. how do you know this they asked i said i don't know. and they were amazed and i sensed treated me differently from then. i was all but five years old. how could i now the consequence of this? * there was a bunker build so strong in the war they couldn't tear it down. it was still there in nineteen seventy four when i visited. nothing not dynamite anything they did still standing. don't now here but in Berlin they converted just such a bunker into a night club and a hotel. what you can't tear down you must reuse. simple tactic, but the war was hell for everyone. especially the civilian population torn between the propeganda and the "liberation" both had failings. my mother never could believe that hitler ordered the destruction of the jews. her ancestry was jewish. her mother was. and she was almost assassinated by a jewish butcher in a gestapo colonel's uniform. she understood survival wasn't easy. but never that. * there was a skylight in the it kitchen i looked up at when the dentist removed some of my teeth. no anestetic in those days just my father holding my head steady while the dentist put his pliers in my mouth and yanked. pain and the bright blue sky was all i remember of that day. my father never did with dentists. too expensive he said. and the day he tied a string around a bad tooth and to the doornob and asked me to go outside and yank the door shut while he sat steady in a chair i will not forget. you did good he said and gave me his extracted tooth which i kept in a jar. now some fifty four fifty five years later remembering this with the pain of an extracted root canal and the swelling that follows. know the pain. * next door where we lived was a facory. i can't recall what they "factored" but we, just kids knew the way in. and we played there. up the ladder to the loft. marie the neighbour girl was frighted, hans the big kid laughed. girls are always afraid he said: stop your whining and crawl up. i extended my hand, she took it and i helped her up. stupid hans said can't do things alone. like a dream dispersed the memories fade...somehow one saturday we were caught. we bolted for the door and made it out...except for, you guessed it, hans. no use defending him we thought. our parents were a differnet matter. trespassing is a dangerous activity. what would happen if you got arrested? my mother nervous as a hawk put the fear back in. * kids. each january after christmas we used to gather all the neighbourhood christmas trees and drag them to a field next to the public baths - no showers or fancy bathtubs then - and build cabins out of them until the authorities would come and tear them down. began a yearly ritual: them and us,defiant. we would build, they tear down. tell our parents. get scolded. next year start all over again. and being next to the public baths was a hilarious plus. especially in the winter when the men and women (different doors) would run out naked in the yard throwing snowballs at each other and then retreat to the steaming swelter that escaped the doors. we kids laughed and laughed. so funny seeing these adults naked. it is getting cold marie said, let's go back in. * in the spring, after the structures we built were dis- mantled. i let a photographer take my picture, in the field. i held a toy gun. i'm a cowboy i said. you sure are, he gave me his card and said to give it to my parents. but they were unhappy i did such a "stupid" thing. it will cost us money my father said. not understanding i went out and played soccer on the cobbled street with uwe my friend until was called in. but once the photographer came to deliver the photos in person some days later they were less upset. never do that again my father said. never did. but life goes on. kids keep playing, keep doing stupid things. not hard. playd ring-a-round the rosie in that field among other games. it was our field. our own territory. never left it till one day they shut it down. new building. kids go home. went home. * there was an apple tree in my best friends yard with a sawed off branch i grew just tall enough to reach and climb into the branches shaking apples loose it was an autumn ritual - we laughed who bit the worm and sometimes chased the girls throwing apples at them not to hurt - just missing - thought when they threw they were right on target. all in fun. uwe's father was "Neptun mit seinem Gefolge, um die Prieltaufe vorzunehmen." great razor shaving foam off tourists. they lapped up every moment. but kids we were and adults played their games as we did ours. and uwe's backyard was our fantacy. one tree in the yard, and one tree in Confederation Park across from City Hall in Ottawa so much later binding present past. won or lost? * what haunts me more than anything - we sat on the wall dividing my friend's father's yard and the hotel concordia and we caught insects...spiders...worms...and we tortured them we wanted to see if worms really could split into two - of course we never saw that so we rosted them with a magnifying glass...and the spiders we tore legs off...god knows what else we did...children being brutal after a war of brutality... every night as adult this lives with me...as samantha lives with me... kitten i brought home from the colony...abandoned lonely...cold... she slept next to my side...she ate bruno's food and bruno watched her and at night he howled...scratched the door wanting to get out. on the balcony he tried to jump ten stories down...and i relented... panicked...took samantha back to the hill...2am...never saw the child again...i will regret that action for the rest of my life. survive. * My father used to have a plot of land in Stickenbuettel, where he cultivated kale, peas, radishes, carrots, rhubarb, potatoes, and other vegetables. He also kept rabbits in a case I thught he treated cruel, picking then up by the ears. I never knew if he slaughtered them or not. In any event we never ate rabbit at our table. There was an apple orchard where I used to fly my kites mostly entangled in the branches when the wind shifted, but we always got an apple or two out of it to the chagrin of the ownner. We used to arrive there on my father's bicycle each Sunday morning when his Barber shop was closed. On the path to the land on the right there was a tar pit. A left over relic from World War II. We avided it of course. One day my best friend Uwe came with us and dared me to ride a bike next to it. I refused. So he did, right in, we extracted his black mass. Everyone had a gargantuan belly laugh. He was fine. I wasn't. From that time on I never rode a bike again. * the day i came from school for supper and i fell backwards down three flights of stairs "i'm ok i said" spent i don't know how long in the hospital with a concussion and whatever else they said was wrong with me. never understood this caution thing - you survive you survive or you don't. but i'm glad i did but wouldn'tknow if i didn't would i? all's relative. since we survive we obviously believe we survive for a reason, if we don't we don't now. we're dead. that's it. purpose or no purpose does it matter? i always wondered about this strange dichotamy of being versus non-being: we living speculate but cannot know until...well,we are dead? so why spec- ulate? or will we nw in death what we can't in life? i don't know. i sus- pect no one does, or if they do they are not telling, of just charletons, fakirs and the like - tourist attraction - fantastic TV shows for old fa- ding actors to hold one last flare of fame. just like most kids tender age i survived. back to my shenanigans exploring life so vital and secure. * "Mein hut der hat drei ecken, drei ecken hat mein hut," and so the song goes, learned it early in school and never forgot it, "und hat er nich drei ecken, denn ist er nich mein hut." so, the day comes along in whilhelm heitzig strasse, maybe a saturday mornig, bright clear skies, warm weather, neighbours gathered to witness the big event - neighbour bought his first car. something grand in a street where no one owned one. a three wheeler. two wheels front, one wheel back. the whole front was a door, and he opened it to show everyone the interior, and we all marvelled how he steering wheel was attached to the door - how could that work? a shiny yellow car. red leather seats. he was so proud of his acquisition! now to be honest, this was not a mercedes, not even a volkswagen, but in reality a poor man's car. but a proud man's car. then came the moment to show us how it ran. he got in closed the door started the motor and it huffed and puffed and we all clapped. he got out and bowed, all scrawny 120 pounds of him. he beckoned his wife to come and join him, no less than 300 and they both got in. car tipped over. * aurora borealis streaked through the sky purple blue yellow refracted on the near ocean * elbe 1 we would see the light tower reflected on the ocean's rippled waves at midnight like fireflies flickering - the ship itself could not be seen beyond the dark horizon it was there summer fall winter spring like the kuegelbarke fixture of cuxhaven marking the end of the river elbe and the beginning of the great ocean. sometimes boats, and even ships, would forget the rules...deep water north, shallows south...the tide came in so quick it obscured the shallows in a few minutes stranding everyone left out there like fog upon the moor...a terrifying ordeal...and went out just as fast stranding boats...which was humorous...part of every normal day. kids relished it. * my father left for canada april 22 1958 on my birthday. we went down to the warf and watched from the upper level of the observation deck as the homeric departed. my mother too me home where a surprise party was waiting for me all the neighbour kids were there and they played ring-around-the rosie with me in the centre and broke down and cried and ran away and hid in the bedroom refusing to come out. finally everyone left and i sat listening to the radio refusing food and cake and ignoring all the presents. there was nothing there i wanted. i don't even think i wanted my father back. it was a betrayal deeper than a loss. no birthday ever i enjoyed again. * my father send me presents from canada. every week. i broke most of the or gave them to my friends. i remember one glider...yellow red...i used to throw at my friends at the garage door...we would see who would get out of the way fastest...some made it...some didn't...i was overjoyed when they didn't...they were a target...and i played with bingo, no longer able to take those night walks to bring my father supper...I was lost at home and school became a horror shop where i was mostly punished for being inattentive...had as punishment sit at the front fielding all the questions i couldn't answer...or didn't want to...nerves...no longer wanted to go to school...soccer practice was the worse... stand in goal don't move let the kids kick the ball at you. * there was a cloud burst. torrental rain. cobble street flooded. watched from window i begged my mother to let me go outside. relented i stripped off my shirt and in shorts danced in the rain...the warm rain beating off my body... the raging water on the cobble stones dancing through my toes...i could hardly contain myself...couldn't even see the other side of the street...stream upon stream bouncing off my soft skin...i danced and laughed and laughed again! on a bicycle a so drenshed paperboy rode by deliveding his soggy evening news...he stopped and asked if i would delived his papers to the apartment building next to where i lived and i said "sure!" took the papers and ran up stairs knocked on doors dripping water everywhere in the hallways...people were surprized, said "danke shoen"...i bowed an amusing "bitte". * moments i don't want to remember tug at me...sometimes tear me apart...or used to in the past...just shrug my shoulders now...nothing to bother about no more...what happens in the past stays in the past...sometimes...some- times not...it shapes our lives no doubt about it but would one ever want to have one's life be any different? through the good, the bad, the joy, the sorrow...isn't that what makes us human? gives us courage, compassion...gives us a reason to overcome go on make a clear path to a future? looking back - why look back? no regret for what I've done... maybe kick myself sometimes for a stupidity...but you learn from it...otherwise life would be useless...on and on stu- pidity...no growth...just stagnation...couldn't stand it. and what was done to me? same thing. why revenge? forgive. * the night the christmas tree caught fire...we used candles then... a few buckets of water from the sink and everything was well... next day we got a new tree and christmas even went the way it should. at 7 we played heilige nacht and bingo was waiting for his treats...the same time i was allowed to come in and open my presnts...parents exchanged theirs...and like all kids i tore apart whatever packages there were...it was warm in the garret... i swear the north star shown brighter through the window than it could...a magical moment never to be repeated again...i believe there was even snow that night...a light delightful sprinkle... we opened the window and let the cool clear north sea enter...it revived us at midnight...i was allowed a brandy and milk...which soon put me to sleep...in canada every year we tried to recreate that evening...we never could...every year grew more distant lost. * the night of the canary...flew into the open window christmas day. sat on the greenbranch of the tree singing perfect harmony with mahler's 1st symphony...my mother spent the whole day trying to capture it...it wouldn't budge...she asked neighbours and they said there was an old woman living in an attic across from the cloal yard who had lost one...the only companion she had...finally my mother managed to coax the bird down and it perched on her finger and she put it in a cage...it was an icy morning when we negotiated the streets and knocked on the door...the old woman was so amazed she beconed us in and made us tea and looking around hanging plans ever- ywhere...she let her bird fly freely and it landed on her shoulder and she spoke to it and it answered back and one knew her loneliness. she kept us over an hour talking of her past her husband and her sons who never come to visit her. a roast in the oven...we had to leave. * sleep beneath the waters cold ocean dark sea where sailors dance death finds you * for Seymour Mayne it was said it's preferable sailors never learn to swim less they abandon ship * uwe and i built a small shed out of logs in his back yard his father had cut for the winter...we used to play in there...pretend we had our own fort... one day i said something that offended him...how gross he said and left me alone...something i had see some adults do...i didn't understand...i guess sometimes the process of growing up is different for everyone... and then the incident in the shed...uwe and i and the neighbour girl...just fooling around...7 year olds... playing doctor you might say...showing off...odd things happen and we were punished...so severely i don't re- member...how strange the past you don't recall affects the actions of tomorrow...all innocence and yet a step too far as an adult a step that steps through tar. * dark night when my parents went a weekend to helegoland... as the british never called it...but the norsemen did... they left me alone with the landlord...i danced naked on the bed when he came in...there are some funny moments in the world children dream about...no adult would ever be privie to that...when the weather is fine we say how clear the sky the gulls are gliding not fluttering...and the wind is from the south not west so nothing clashes atmospheres no fog that lifts so easily...no haunted house to welcome long lost parents...there is a disease upon the planet but it is not what we think it is...it is the smallness of this place and we don't matter if we look at it but do...somehow. the voyage into space is one thing...naked jumping joyous on a bed alone at night is another. dark shadows exempted. * the last christmas 57 we spent in cuxhaven my father refused to let me enter my room slanted roof adjacent to the living room no door but kept the curtwin shut...i was all excited... come christmas eve the room was filled with wonders...built my father had a whole town and a toy railway...mountians...tu- nels...stations all lighted up at night and...a small puppet stage...and many toys...as if a sacrifice...a final moment of appeasement...a great grand feast of everything...a child i was amazed...mezmorised...invited all my friends over...and gleed that uwe only had a small circular train set while mine was munumental...just had to rub it in...and that spring a friend gave a puppet show in uwe's father's back yard...and we laughed so hard i pissed my pants and embarrased my father led me home across the street...humiliation is no cause for defeat. * the little boy in a cowboy outfit his mother made for him holding a toy gun and grinning on the kindergarten staircase so reminiscent a year or so later of him standing in a field posing for an unknown photographer...same toy gun i'm sure... but that was after they hit him because he wouldn't eat his burnt porriage...you don't complain they said...but i did... and threw a spoon of it in the guardian's face...and from that day on you never serve me porriage burnt or otherwise ever a- gain...a five year old never forgets...the poison in an adult is insistance...where sincerity punishes a child sincerity earns no trust...when we remember the dust of our mistakes, remember this: even dust that settles on clay will leave imprints...and slowly through time they solidify...just as we do not dream of adverse situations renewed circumstances do not correct a fallacy. * my earliest memory in a stroller my mother and grandmother fussing about me on a glorious spring morning the air was chrisp and clean and the sun was warm on my cheeks and i was bundled up in a cap and sweater my mother knitted for me over the winter. they were talking joking laughing tickling me when my grandmother took out a mark and handed it to me as a present. i held it looked at it and tossed it in her face. i laughed. my mother was emberrassed apologizing profusely. grandma was upset. not knowing what the fuss was all about i laughed and then i was scolded and i cried. i was confused. didn't mean to hurt anyone. it was just a coin after all. nothing i could eat or chew on. it was shiny in the sun and made a pretty clinging sound when it fell upon the pavement. my mother picked it up. granny left. i fell asleep. * the beach a duhnen could have extended farther south but was cordoned off - quicksand - no one dared go there. also unexploded shells and a dump for spent fuel from V2 rockets still toxic near the ruins of an old encampment. megalithic...blue stones in a circle...we are always fascinated...dared each other...never dared to take the dare. some things you just leave alone no matter how they draw you in with mystery and history and imagination...the law said leave it alone and we left it - our curiosity withstanding alone. dark mist on that moor...swear we heard howling wolves - not uncommon. there is a darkness and illusion where reality and mind seperates. macbeth's 3 witches...when the hurly burley's done. some such nonsense. only the wind rustling the high grass growing on the dunes. lucky what we found was not a bomb. * they had a bunker in stickenbuettel concrete reinforced a yard think and tried to blow it up at least once a year. it couldn't budge. an eye sore they said, got to get rid of it. six stories high. sore thumb reminder on the horizon. that was 56...74 it was still standing. nothing brought it down. legacy of war: what is made strong survives...what is weak vanishes before our eyes. and sometimes the strong isn't pretty as the weak might be a beautiful blossom decaying rapidly. one has to wonder how the world survives such strife. death so massive that the stench is sweet manure to crops that will come after it to feed the growing generations marching backward in remembrance. eric boogle wrote a song about it shane mcgowan sang with force. it went something like this: year after year their numbers get fewer, till no one will be marching at all. * one winter it was so cold in the garret the windows froze inside and we had to get some coal for the stove...the streets were frozen and the sacks were large and too heavy to carry...so i suggested we use my roller and my mother thought that was a great idea. we set out on icy streets past were the old woman with her canary and plants lived and made it to the yard without falling. the yard manager laughed when he saw our mode of trans- portation. you'll never make it he said. i looked him in the eye and shouted yes we will. gut gut he said take that bag over there johann can pay me later. my mother and i dragged the bag to the roller and tried to balance it. it slipped off. but slowly we found a way to manage. down the street we went, only a block or two, but difficult. the sack slipped several times and almost split open spilling the bricks to the ground. when we got home we had to drain it up three flights of stairs. that done, we lit a fire and the whole place filled with warmth. my mother gave me a great hug. thanks, she said. that was something i would never have thought to do. i smiled. not a problem i said...any time you need...just ask. * in the autumn in the forest uwe and i crunching kicking through the yellow leaves almost ankle heigh without a care sunlight intermingling with the shadows and the yellow of the leave reflecting a golden aura almost made us blind. the air was vibrant and filled our lungs effevescantly. we could not have been more giddy...laughing...singing...shouting... running...hiding behind trees...picking mushrooms...which are poison? which are good to eat?...our parents explained...we were more interested in the poison ones...obviously...and then uwe ran away into a dark gully...we called after him...he did not answer...frantic we searched everywhere...nothing...just the silence of the forest...as if it had him swollowed up...when suddenly, out of nowhere he ran down a hill arms waving all excited here i am here i am and getting near tripped and tumbled into a pit of vermin...laughter was supreem. * last christmas in germany. every year my mother baked a stoelle... marzipan and fruit and lots of icing which she shared with the neighbours. it was an event everyone looked forward to. she was famous for it. and the hot whaft of yeast was intoxicating as was the rum she added to it. this year was no different. i helped her mix the ingredients and kneeded the dough...and i got to finger out the bowl - a delicious treat. after she put her creation in the old iron cast oven we went to relax in the living room by the warm stove and the christmas tree listening to the radio. bingo lay in the corner where it was warm and cozy when after an hour or so there was a big explosion and startled we ran into the kitchen frantic to see what was happening. my mother yelled "oh no!!!" as she saw the oven door blown out and the stoelle spilling over to the floor! too much yeast it filled the chamber. we had to cut it out piece by piece. the best we ever had! * 1st year in school the teacher used to put a dunce cap on my head when i couldn't come up with her answer and sit us on a chair in the corner. the other kids would laugh. after that you had to sit in the first row and answer each question first...when you couldn't you were slapped. Hard. I always wanted to sit at the back of the class. For the photo they took when I was ready to leave for Canada they placed me in the middle. never forgave me for the trouble i caused. the trip to Hamburg the doctors the stupid IQ stuff...never touched me again, but consigned to the back row in the class as punishment...never did a thing assigend again for them...kept saying i was stupid for not knowing the answers to their stupid questions...i kept telling them...i can't give you an answer since you don't know the question...didn't phase them in the least...garbage in garbage out...2-1 is what? I shook my head wrote on the blackboard 2-1=2-1 didn't like that, go back to your seat...stupid she said stupid stupid stupid! * sometimes on a stormy night i would sneak out of the house as would go down to the Alte Liebe and sit on a bench watching the white crested waves smash into the wooden dock. sometimes an old sailor would sit next to me and tell me stories of voyages long ago...sometimes a woman would come and wrap me in a blanket and whatever sailors were there would whistle at her and she would make an obscene gesture...sometimes Bingo would follow me and sit in front of me wagging his tail...and sometimes my parents would come running down the plank franting not knowing where i was...i was fine... i loved those nights...quiet...sometimes dark clouds obscured the stars... sometimes the whole vistal of the universe would shine in my 8 year old eyes... or i would hold conversation with the moon...and the moon i am certain, but don't rely on this, would winkat me...maybe it was just a passing cloud...but real or not it conquered my imagination...it was real...and back at home warm in feather mattress i would dream such dreams even one's imagination marvelled at! * the sea shimmered in the bright sun- shine the sea shim- mered on the watt i mean it wasn't just bright it blinded the eyes... like a blazing metior it hit you you sheilded your eyes or were momentarily blinded a hot flash like at bikini atoll when the bomb exploded. * i hate getting old and i'm beginning to hate all these memories * when we lived in a block of row houses somewhat like in coronation street two stories tight knit community all of 3 years old i think still small enough to explore behind the furnature i found an open socket in the wall and stuck my finger in it...when i woke up the doc and my parents lorded over me and bingo licked my nose...funny i re- member the shock but felt no pain (my hair must have been an awful mess!) yet i felt no devine revelation no i will now bless god forever...what i felt was more of an elation at waking up...again... 9 Nov 2010 135am * a bully beat me up i came crying home my father's anger told me go out there and show your stuff i walked out and found a plank of wood and wacked the guy solidly he ran home crying the neigbours were upset my father was upset but when they all calmed down this bully and me became the best of friends * i loved the cobblestone streets they had a solid structured history i loved the way the water ran between the cracks i even loved it when i was run over by a volkswagen and injured my knee...and then a bicycle ran into me my roller lay crumled by the curve my mother ran to me the driver of the car frantically apologized i didn't see i didn't see neighbours everywhere and i really didn't feel that hurt but played it up by screaming like a five year old it hurts it hurts they carried up to the apartment and put me on the sofa called the doctor and i just heard a noxious noise -- knee's been bad ever since worse now that my hip's pinned and funny how you remember certain days... * i remember so much i i really don't want to share it any longer... 351am 14 nov 2010 * [1182]