December 2005

VOL XIII Issue 12, Number 152

Editor: Klaus J. Gerken

Production Editor: Heather Ferguson;

European Editor: Moshe Benarroch;

Contributing Editors: Pedro Sena; Michael Collings; Jack R. Wesdorp; Oswald LeWinter

ISSN 1480-6401

INTRODUCTION

   Graham Tiler 
      THE DEATH OF POETRY

CONTENTS

   Anthony Liccione
      One Morning, Snow Flakes Fell
      In Love vs. Love
      Lunch with Mr. Collins
      Unconscious Prayer
      Welcome To Death! Congratulations!
   
   Kimberly D. Duncan
      At Length
      The Cat Who Lives Under My Porch
      Since Becoming Womanly
   
   Katherine L. Holmes
      (What if he finds a nurse like that?)
      Formations and misfortunes
      Ice cream truck
      Line gone dead
   
   Vincent Spada
      I am the light-skinned angel, with the darkness in his eyes
      What we found in the ground
   
   Rizwan Saeed Ahmed
      Birth Astride Of A Dual World
      Measurement
      Palsy resides on where day ends
      Expostulations Unheeded
      Resurfacing Deluge
      Quandary of Worth
      Gems Are Out
      I Fell In Love With Dust
      The Incarnate Reality
      Tragic Waste 
      Inscrutable Spheres
      Conscientious Objector

POST SCRIPTUM

   Klaus J. Gerken 
      what is poetry?

Graham Tiler 


THE DEATH OF POETRY
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Come quickly
The poetry is dying
Its been held up by scripture and song
All the doctors are holding up mirrors
But none seem to know where it's gone

It left late at night
In a taxi
But the taxi crashed into a wall
The walls name was Judas Iscariot
But Judas was not meant to fall

Then the doctors they cried out for Judas
But Judas groaned 
Poetry's been framed
I framed it for murder
From memory 
I needed its love to be tamed

So Judas was placed in a prison
He escaped just by being too thin
You can't murder the poetry by memory
You just have to get under its skin

You have to burn holes in your memory
For poems to breath and escape
And if Judas Iscariot comes calling
Then tell him he'll just have to wait
 

Anthony Liccione


One Morning, Snow Flakes Fell
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jesus awoke one morning, early
sipping warm tea cupped in his hands,
he crossed his legs and sat in the middle
of symmetry before a window.
To find the first day of snowfall-
knowing soon, the words of his father
would come calling: It Is Time.
His father will gather the winds
of the world, and blow a trumpet
for all to hear. The sky will open,
separating ordinary blue from percious
gold and Jesus will descend.
As he had rehearsed over and over
with his father.

Outside the snow fell as chunks
of manna chiming to his gaze,
he wiped away the condensation
that formed from his brow and
thought the thousands falling,
pitching the day a dazzle of white-
perched and lost on tree branches
he saw the poor sparrows huddling
against the cold finger of winter.
It looked rather aliquot through the
frosted window, the warm-blooded
suffering as a cold-blooded man
sat warmly in shelter.

What if he decided not to stop
the bow-bent time, he thought
the hundreds counting on him
awaiting for his blur return- what
if, after all, it was a worthless race.
Chasing out the demons they moan with.
Changing their water to priceless wine.
Giving them wings they never earned.

Their prayers, how it has altered
to fit the stitch of their fabric lives
fainthearted and self-destructive,
greed for the green of the world.
The nuns of none with no one to visit,
as aged wine rosaries in hand wearing
wrinkled leather skins, to burst
dactyl beads in prayer to Mary.

With his hand held out the open window,
he watched how the different cut crystals
randomly fell into place, some blown
by wind, others missed and collected
on the frozen ground and those that fell
into his hand, warmly glittered
and melted back into a raindrop.
It could have been so beautiful,
eternally pure water
and the curtail of unseen things-
the fool who tried to beat the system
by giving imagination for good works, Jesus
not finding what he so truly was searching,
trust.

Retrieving his glistened hand
from the window, he noticed
parts were chapped and numb, where
a sore red had spread up his forearm
and down to the tips of his fingers
appearing like twigs in a shade of ash,
to almost frostbitten.

With a transcend of words the window
closed and the curtains folded to the world,
as his father came calling for him.



In Love vs. Love
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I love you for your eyes,
not just any eyes that gaze,
but the light I find
in dark brown irises
when I follow deep into,
they take and lead me
to your wet soul.

I love you for your breath,
cool inhale, the warmth of exhale
as it passes from nostril to exile,
and skims the surface of my skin
like summer breeze on an open shore.

I love you for your life,
and well-being, a conditioned human
of flesh, blood and heartbeats;
I thank your mother and father
in the gift of your wonder, your genes
and passions and ideas that wander,
I would give my left lung, to have
your laughter close by fluttering.

I love you for your fragileness,
the architecture of faultlessness-
fashioned with craft from a draft
rib bone of me,
that surrounds and sounds my heart.

I love you for the sake of loving,
the safety of not being damage-
the amazing knowledge to know
that promotes cares into sincerity,
like the higher ground that escalates
from an egg to a wing,
the music that we string together;

even in the friction of raining clouds
when storms will gather in our closet
and flowers that set sail in September,
the force that overpowers abstraction-
will be, my love in you.



Lunch with Mr. Collins
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's always no time to read and rush,
rush, rush after I've washed my hands
and prayer- just a notch to eat my boloney
and rye, defeating the sense of purpose
to why I bought his read-while-I-eat
book in the first place.

He always sits in my locker
with ink still fresh on untouched
pages, peering at me though dust,
desiring to teach me different
hemispheres of thought and notion:
of how the moon reflects a bitten cracker
and Beethoven orchestrates a barking dog.
The what, I heard he found under
Emily Dickinson's nakedness.

But rather, it's fold of a newspaper missing
sections and the greasy-screen television
nomadic with the operas and dramas of Oprah,
it's the giggle of gossip of who slept with who
in the receiving department, and that same down-
ward clank of a can of Coke on a couple of quarters,
where the last breath of wings bleating zeros
from a sinking horsefly in the sink.

It's the shift manager across who keeps shifting his
eyes from the time clock to me to his sandwich and
wrist of hands almost perfectly aligned to the minute,
all the while

a pierced-face girl's cigarette is half past twelve
to her lips,
and fifteen minutes spent to no intention.



Unconscious Prayer
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Our Death,
who art upon us
hollowed by thy name.
Thy kingdoom come
thy ill be done
in earth as it is in Hades.
Depart us this day
our daily breath.

And forbid us sorrows depth,
of the grave our morbid mouth.
and allay us from life's pangs of pains,
but deliver us from Evil:
for thine is the reaper,
and the prowler, and the gloomy,
forever. Abyss.



Welcome To Death!

Congratulations!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The doctor told her, you have
given birth to an eight pound
baby watemelon
full of pits.
Who was the first person
to say
when we are born,
welcome to life?
when perhaps they should have said
this day, we welcome you to death,
for it is death we are facing!
Racing youth with face of the clock.

What about that first breath at birth
that continues throughout our death
where people will argue their cause
that first breath is the spirit of God,
and of whom is life.
Or those other spectors that say
when we are born, we instantly
enter eternity, and when we die
we simple transform from flesh
to spirt,
like a sneeze into a kleenex. 

Slowly we are riding the bullet
reversing the gears of vitality
year by year-
placing our bones along the river,
walking with the sunset and
going to sleep to sunrise
struggling to put difference in place,
a fallen leaf back on the branch-

till we reach that final end
of death where every leaf must foliage,
shouldn't we then congratulate ourselves
of eternal bliss-
the gain of a blessed cloth
to wipe away the last of earthly tears,
entering into the branch of life.



Kimberly D. Duncan


At Length
~~~~~~~~~

She makes a list
Of all the things she needs to do.
And sits among piles of boxes
Not doing them
She doesn't make the calls
She doesn't write the checks
She sleeps and sleepwalks through her days
With vacant distant gazes in the fog
And the list that she makes grows as long as the night.

She washes her long blonde hair
And pins it up without brushing it out
It's the first shower she's had in three days
She drops the towel
On the stained brown carpet
And looks at the dark circles under her eyes
Before quieting the reflection in the mirror
The scent of mildew lingers in her nostrils
And the hair on her legs grows as long as the night.

She is frightened by the shadow
Of the scraggly old cat on the wall
His eyes are pale and lifeless
Under the bare light bulb
As he weaves in and out among the boxes
And keeps his distance
She lies in the middle of the floor
Weeping among the boxes
And the shadow of fear grows as long as the night.



The Cat Who Lives Under My Porch
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I regard you as friend these days.
Though I doubt you think of me so fondly.
I have named you Hiroo.

We sit in silence together like friends.
I watch you stare at the hot summer air
            With weather- and wisdom-worn eyes.
You disregard me
            Too proud for that.

Your ears, the left one half missing, twitch
            As if they heard a moth light on a blade of grass
            Several blocks away.

There is a new gash on your haunch.
            The sun glints on a furless patch of white skin
            From a scar surely older than I.

You leap down from the railing
            To sit in the shade of the tall oak
            Your crooked tail held high.

I rise to go into the air-conditioned house.
            You glance over your shoulder at
            The woman who lives over your porch.



Since Becoming Womanly
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mothering the demands of chains
Smeared like summer placed out of languidity.

And here, watch them.

The opened lives of the old drunks
Behind an electric concrete garden
Smelling of beer, butt, egg, feet, death.
Masterpieces sculpted of sweat.
The wind chisels a bitter raw aesthetic
Dazzles the art in a crushed cigarette
But never produce gorgeous pictures
Elaborately painted nudes
Monument to eternity
Yet form a neo-surreal beauty
And suffer to create a glorious canvas.

            She lets go.



Katherine L. Holmes


(What if he finds a nurse like that?)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A maple's rime-knit handspread
where fingernails break, bird ovals
balance at branch-tips, a steeple
above a three-story so he couldn't
say what species they are either
swaying near the grayed main street

mosying this year.  If he takes that
tonight, lamps surmise on families
while my panes an exertion uphill
might remind him of petri dishes
and conserving electricity during
carpet-shocks, "not what I expecteds."
Note:   specimen differentiation.

Top of the day.   After sauna-blasts
round a chimney rim, those birds
seem amused at aerobic bending
on the tundra sky current.  Inquiry:
Do ice-goggled birds amuse themselves?

Coming into town, if he is still
casing me, my blinds indicate
I’m up with the sun, groggy
at 8:30 now, and not understanding
certain hardline virtues if musts
get accomplished between partings
with sleep.  And frugal new-fangled
not chugging in place towards the
oil-bereft twenty-first century.

Are birds less voluble this solstice
like icefishermen, not like one nurse
neighbor, strident at six.  Cruising
cafeteria-clean gleams, clasping 
next to nothing, birds bud gray as
pussywillows on the maple conveyance
back and forth, forth and back
while we with highminded notions
pass up the costs of a penchant
for documenting the unknown.


 
Formations and misfortunes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The whale went finned, unevenly
gray in a spume
   of formations
changing like the
   cogitating mind

in the aftermath
when he seemed a misfortune
   drifting overhead off
something to mourn during
   the endangered days

except clouds were holding
   a carnival
wind-whipped around a ringmaster
   the potential nimbuses
      evolving animals

a Siberian tiger swaggering
   the blue vaccuum
beyond a Galapagos island
   of a turtle
a padded panda and banners
   of whooping crane

the wisps must be passenger pigeons
   dissolving into azures
wavery as imaginings

(nebulous at the sunset of 
   berry-smeared slopes)

that are sites of an idea
in which a man from a weepswept world
   shipwrecked and mistaken
might see sketchy facsimiles
   the indistinct scuddings
of his clouded recollections.
 


Ice cream truck
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Ice cream truck
that finds no echo

squeals to catch up

in the dead spaces

drops off disconsolate

an alien vehicle
after the cosmic cartoons
among sirens and security buzzers

in my late twenties in the city

the ring br-ring is a tinny one
like a mechanical bicycle bell
the silver turtle on the handlebars.

   A nostalgia-engine
making forlorn soundings
into the tear-springs
of the numerous women

finds less fish-leaping

as it takes its square corners
near blaring breezy Blaisdell Avenue
a circumspect cat won't cut across

the estimated ice cream beggars can't.

   Enigmatic unseen anybodies
who take shortcuts
through our yards

ringing snooze-alarm giggles
dinging in the day
during the ideal schedule.

   Turn back time
clockhands of schoolchildren
under my windowsill.

   How is it a cat knows what street
never to venture onto?
 


Line gone dead
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sat in a corner
the day after it went dead.
That phone belonged in a museum
                                    I thought.
Having put a magazine illustration
an antique earpiece and mike
                                    on the rotary disk
to cover the decade and dinginess
                                    a defunct number.

Like a nostalgia-overloaded old flame
wanting to tear it from the jack
                                    in a non-contact sport
I came to hate the fifties telephone
and wondered if Alexander Graham Bell
anticipated Celtic insults soaring over backyards
                                    at the speed of anger.

He could "cause his own hair
to stand on end.  It is in him,"
wrote a woman journalist
                                    he distrusted.

Then he threw up his hands in court
sickened at the telephone and patent claims
of slanderous strangers thick
                                    as telemarketers.


I tossed my museumpiece
of a woman speaking her mind
                                    without being beaten
into the garbage can the obsolete earlobe
and stair-slope design.  As it hit bottom,
                                    it rang!



Vincent Spada


I am the light-skinned angel, with the darkness in his eyes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

I am the light-skinned angel, 
with the darkness in his eyes
If you trust me with your life,
then you're in for a surprise

Oh, I've done some splendid things,
but all white roses have their thorns
At times my halo bends and curves
into a pair of horns

I painted the Sistine Chapel, 
and I wrote the Holy Book
I also started wars of hate,
and billions of lives I took

I invented machines of amazement
I cured with medicines of healing
Then I looked at the world, cracked a grin,
and decided to do some stealing

I treated my brother with love and respect
I honored and valued his life
I also burned down his house, just for fun,
and raped his beautiful wife

I built roads, I built schools,
I took my message across the seas
Then I sold Negroes for mere pennies,
and brought the Indians to their knees

I offered hope to the great masses,
and now all is safe and calm
I gave to them the peace of mind
that comes with an atom bomb

I have civilized the planet with my wisdom,
yet so many have claimed I am odd
Just because I've killed, again and again,
all in the name of god

Oh, think not that I am unique
No, all races are as guilty as hell
But I stand out among the many,
for I sin so very well

Yes, I am the light-skinned angel,
with the darkness in his eyes
Be prepared as the future approaches,
for you're in for a surprise



What we found in the ground
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
 
What we found in the ground
may change a lot of things
It may step on a few toes, 
and sever important strings
 
What we found in the ground 
may upset the status quo
It may burn the oldest bridges,
what those scientists do know
 
What we found in the ground
may put an end to holy lies
It may shatter collection plates,
and stop all those costly tithes
 
What we found in the ground
may destroy what we hold dear
It may take away all hope, 
and in its place leave fear
 
What we found in the ground
may answer questions we all ask
Should we not then seek it out?
Should that not then be our task? 
 
What we found in the ground
may be wretched and uncouth
But what we found in the ground
may in fact just be the truth



Rizwan Saeed Ahmed


Birth Astride Of A Dual World
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This birth astride of a dual world 
Has bestowed on man a split being.
Both counter-running real and ideal compose
Man’s ephemeral timespan on this earth.
Even to cope with the reality of life 
And to erect his worldly-self 
Each man imitates an ideal set in his imagination.
Most men get lost in what is apparent, luring and
real.
But there are few others who dare to ascend 
The labyrinth ladder of ineffable perfection 
And yet have insanity pronounced on them 
By the echoes of a matter-driven age.
An insurmountable task which perhaps is equivalent
To walking on the edge of sword is to maintain
The balance between two antagonist-and- 
Yet-explicable-in-togetherness-worlds. 
Still seeking imperfection and perfection through 
The nexus of reciprocity has been the most 
Ancient riddle dawned on men. 
It is easier for few unyielding forlorn lunatics too, 
To fuse in the cycle of all-pervading reality
alongwith
Millions and millions followers of 
Material-multidimensional-deity than in a dream.
But where do real and ideal converge
Remains a cryptic meeting place.
While men keep clinging between two worlds,
Settling neither in one nor the other, sharing same lot.
Many cross the threshold of reality but few 
Prefer to exist as self-proclaimed outcasts,
Lingering along the edge of the ultimate. 
But eventually, nearly all end remaining short of 
The verge and bereft of the essence of twin worlds.


 
Measurement
~~~~~~~~~~~

Out of his earthly casual routine wanderings,
But with fancy fluttering farther a skylark's flight,
He decided measuring the pace of dynamic time.
In fact the dynamism of time had now 
Really accelerated in an electric-fast manner.
And roads proffered him the best 
Resort to conduct this odd experiment.
Vans which ran in the same direction
Could not formulate a plausible appraisal.
But the vans which ran in opposite directions
And which crossed one another like a whizzing flash 
Afforded a just measurement of speedy time.
For receding roads and receding vans 
Flaunted a fitting testimony to it.
Time was aflying westward and 
Perhaps was nearing down its peak.



Palsy resides on where day ends
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Each wrinkle of her face fell like
A blunt blade on his heart.
For an age resided on each of them,
With such tales engraved which even
All-embracing life found puzzling.
This drove him to take a temporal 
Departure from the incumbent reality
Of the world and land in a distant land.
Where images of palsy were scattered 
All around and each shrouded remnants of past.
And dreamy past kept distancing unceasingly.
Where rheumatic palsy had twists set in each
Joint and which were furthered by a bent head
And back, while youth strutted around outside
And avoided stepping the uninhabitable land.
Where such retrograde moves like reconnecting
To departed times return unrewarded.
And during long sans-sleep nights one takes each
Turn with mounting apprehensions on the 
Sarcophagus bed surrounded by uncanny visions which 
Descend on blurring senses without any confrontation.
No panacea could sustain these sinking 
And flickering dusty-lamps which condemned 
Those who aspire for elixir.
Where cursing the unending homogeneity of the
Days of life men cried, "Repetition, repetition,
Repetition, we have suffered within the grip of 
This ever-revisiting and encircling repetition."
These were the detainees of a misty marooned island
Hid from the eyes of the world which was 
Bordered by the waters of melancholy.
"Put out the lamp as the morn is alight," 
Heralded the dawn chorus which broke plaintive spell.
And with uneven breath and declining rattle behind
His back, he left the dotage-land,
For the pseudo-reality of the world was
Too compelling to drag him back.



Expostulations Unheeded
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
He was anxious about
His unrequited love these days,
As she had been so stubborn to 
Say something on that subject 
Since his childhood.
When child she had lured him through
Her customary lullabies,
But now his youth desired some reciprocity.
In long lonely sleep-no-more nights,
He had addressed her very often.
But she would say nothing
Except her natural surrealistic 
Tik, tik, tik-
Had there been time at her disposal,
She would have stopped to weave
A convincing love-language to console her 
Lover’s heart and repel his expostulations.
But she was an always-in-hurry mistress.
And what a strange storehouse of 
Language she possessed
Which consisted of just one word and one sound:
Tick, tick, tick…
And he deemed that incomprehensible sound
A nonstop strike on his unfulfilled love.
Ultimately, he attached some self-derived
Meaning with her equivocal drill to make 
Something out of it.
All what she harped 
And all what he listened to was:
wait
Wait
WAIT
watch
Watch
WATCH
WATCH
On the wall.


 
Resurfacing Deluge
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

To those thousands perished in Tsunami.
A world so great, a heaven ornate,
A real estate, a thing of taste,
A thing of beauty, a joy forever,
But--
A rope of hope, a cut of chance,
A subsoil clash, a giant split,
A gushing deep, a gnawing surge,
A sandy man, a fragile frame, 
A leveler in haste, a hell of waste, 
A distant death, a so close doom,
A sans mercy time, an unending death’s chime, 
A child-less mother, a mother-less child,
A child-less father, a father-less child,
A love-less love, a hate-less hate,
A life-less life, a poor-less poverty,
A rotting stuff, an ever-increasing stench,
A supreme creature, a catastrophe so low,
An off-hand departure, a tale of woe,
A world off-stage, a new in place,
A true nightmare, a passing dream.
A death, so very pain, a numberless deaths
And--


 
Quandary of Worth
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The much repelled but yet hurrying near
Moment stood like a mirror in front of me.
The cycle of life kept moving 
Even at that moment.
Stopping not even a trice for me.
And the room was to be vacated.
I joined my heart and mind together
To recall the two years stay over there.
Then, I looked, gazed, watched, stared 
To seize, hold, grab, capture my each
Moment which passed in that room. 
Just then came to my mind the saying that
Things and places hold no importance,
And it is just one-way emotional trade 
Which lends them all worth.
I could not stand it.
And I broadened the net of memory
To stock my well spent time with more zeal.
Keep things aside and turn to men for a while.
When men are no longer in our sight,
Don’t we forget them in a fortnight.
The men’s case is only different in that
Their memories face a gradual decline.
Even the oldest imprinted images kept
With utmost care start blurring with passing time.
Another thing which gives men an upper hand
Is two way emotional trade.
‘Give and take’ as termed by sages of all ages.
But beware this is only when 
Two parties are alive.
As things do not express any thing
And live with us till the time we want them, 
Or till they are taken away from us.
Hence things take what comes their way.
But why do the memories of some things stamp and 
Stick to our memory as strongly as 
The memory of our dear departed ones.
Whatever might be the case with things and places.
If that room were not there,
Where would I have been on earth.


 
Gems Are Out
~~~~~~~~~~~~

They deal in the business of gems,
Their job is to shape and polish.
They have been doing this for years.
The gems are lovely, bright and dazzling,
And diffuse multifarious coloured rays.
Each gem is a world in itself
And distinct from the other simultaneously.
But no sooner they are in the market
At the disposal of the outer world,
Their shine gradually declines.
For they have apprehensions regarding 
Their auction, as what sort of buyers may bid.
The only thing that alarms them the most
Is the gnawing difference between the two worlds;
One, where they were taken care of and polished
And the other in which they are sold.
Indeed, their transfer from the first world
To the other is really detestable.
Sometimes they regret to remember the hands
Which had polished them, and, then, 
Let them go in such an uncertain world.
But they check this timely feeling at once
And regard their benefactors with great regard.
For whatever they are left with 
To adorn the external world,
They owe it to those caring hands.
Perhaps once I was a gem,
But a gem is forever a gem.



I Fell In Love With Dust
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Unconsciously I sat,
But consciously I stood up in disgust,
For my chair was smeared with dust.
A speck of dust could never be seen,
But today there was just dust and dust.
Incidentally I sighted my dust-smeared hand,
Then, a very close examine led me to deduce
That a more than great resemblance was there 
Betwixt my hand’s skin and the dust.
She held my heart,
And everything came to a stand still.
In a fleeting moment, I was reminded
Of a distant kinship, of a bond 
Stronger than all other bonds.
Good heavens! I fell in love with her,
As all beauties, all colours and all fragrances she was.
The only difference was that
She was lifeless and some life I had.
An invitation there was for me
To reflect upon the general lines too.
In sum, what men are!
A mass of dust,
Which is being blown in all directions
Since the world was made, 
And is being dragged by the winged time,
Till the day dust comes out of dust.




The Incarnate Reality
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Never ever call him a dreamer, an idealist,
Since he creates a link between realities 
And the absolute realities.
He is the one who brings forth the 
Truth from the opaque background 
To the transparent front.
Who else can be more intimate to 
The real world than him, 
Though he approaches it imaginatively.
One impulse suffices him 
To lay bare heaven and earth 
Before our eyes.
In a trice, he transports us ages and ages
Back, reconstructing bygone worlds.
Hence airy nothing is transformed
Into a corporeal, a concrete 
And a visible form.
Yet he is a poor player,
And quibbling is his art.
By no means different he is from
The ordinary stream of life,
Just grasps a little portion,
After playing his role, he departs,
And finally gets lost in the cycle of time.
Pity these materialist monsters 
Who are blind to their own follies
And regard the past sages as dead.
Apprise the living dead, 
Neither they were dead then
Nor they are today,
For theirs is a life in death 
And ours just a death in life.
Be it confessed, only words 
Are at his disposal,
But take this for granted;
In life, among men, 
It is words that matter all.
Let my words never perish 
But linger everlastingly between 
The realms known and unknown 
Till the end of the world.
For I stand for the one who is 
A sage, a seer, a savant,
A revolutionary and an incarnate reality. 



Tragic Waste 
~~~~~~~~~~~~

There was clamour indeed,
And rustle of new gorgeous dresses.
The laughter which was enormously high 
Could even rend heavens. 
It was not the rush hour at all, 
They were roving to their domicile. 
Perhaps they were having a D-Day, 
As they were a deafening company.
Out of the blue, there was a big bang, 
Death-rattle filled the air for sometime. 
Then the setting was deathly still again, 
Only a dead silence set in motion. 
The general stream was not perturbed, 
For it followed its course interminably. 
Naturally, a few people were wailing somewhere, 
But this did not make much difference. 
All that was to be cleaned off was 
A mound of wreckage. 



Inscrutable Spheres
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As stars in the sky,
Are we on the earth.
They seem pretty close to each other,
In fact there are scores of miles between them.
Shining in lonely spheres, affecting intimacy,
Each one is a light to itself but to no one.
We are not less deceitful than stars,
Existing in self-made isolated spheres we pretend all.
O these are inscrutable spheres, 
Who dares conquer them!
Our whole race is run in a deserted limbo,
One moment we advance and the next we retract to invulnerable cocoons.



Conscientious Objector
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Again a thundering Voice had disturbed him,
And he was trembling, sweating and mumbling.
The Voice said, "A huge fissure is between your ideas and actions,"
"Your snail faith is creeping in the depths of a dark deep ravine."
He said, "No. Give me some more time," "I am trying to narrow it down,"
The Voice said, "Never. You can not," "The gulf is there and is widening too."
He said, "I do feel conscience pricking," "I will make it,"
The Voice said, "The gulf is too big to engulf the whole universe."
"I am not a conscientious objector," "Am I?" he assured himself,
And shifted to the other side and slept again...

Klaus J. Gerken

what is poetry?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

there is a tree called ygdrasil
yoric hung upon for 13 years
upside down clenshed fingernails
bled copious litres of blood
black from too much wine
but two squirrels saved him
and he came down unscathed
to plant a sapling in the mud
of literature
slowly growing it branches out
into a hostile world
underground
filling the earth with a great argument
what is truth and what is lie
and what is poetry
yoric doesn't know
neither does the world
but a shaman does
a madman does
a child's eye glistens with it
and adults just pretend...

754pm 7 dec 2005

  All poems copyrighted by their respective authors. Any reproduction of
  these poems, without the express written permission of the authors, is
  prohibited.

  YGDRASIL: A Journal of the Poetic Arts - Copyright (c) 1993 - 2005 by 
  Klaus J. Gerken.

  The official version of this magazine is available on Ygdrasil's 
  World-Wide Web site http://users.synapse.net/~kgerken.  No other 
  version shall be deemed "authorized" unless downloaded from there. 
  Distribution is allowed and encouraged as long as the issue is unchanged.

  COMMENTS & SUBMISSIONS

    * Klaus Gerken, Chief Editor - for general messages and ASCII text
    submissions: kgerken@synapse.net

    Or mailed with a self addressed stamped envelope, to: