A Night with Yoric II A Poem 2010 / 2011 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 dingy 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 Palestine 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 obeyed otherwise one punishment code of honour safe hard to accept 60 years on never paranoid as colonial is ottawa 2010 fishermen on a sunny wharf sea drenched 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 shoals off newfoundland they weren't discoverers 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 beneath 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 flower 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 sandals (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 stranded in quicksand with tide in rage rolling steamrolled 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 air view. * 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 Newfoundland 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 formulate 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 different 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 revealed 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 sweater. but it was a dry air. the south breezes cleared the humidity, and when it did it was cold. that juxtaposition 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 delicacies 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 barren 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- ler waving at us. my father at that time was a night watchman in the darkest places of the docks ensuring no one stole or lurked or did any damage. he would go from shed to another and then inspect the trains and then in a dinghy inspect the boats and ships once with me there. i remember the darkness and the rocking of the boat as we made our way between giant steel moored and rocking in the moon's 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 Pinocchio 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 propaganda 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 anesthetic 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 doorknob 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 factory. 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 frightened, 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 different 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. played 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 fantasy. 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 roasted 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 thought 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 owner. 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 avoided 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't know 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 dichotomy of being versus non-being: we living speculate but cannot know until...well, we are dead? so why spec- ulate? or will we know 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 charlatans, fakirs and the like - tourist attraction - fantastic TV shows for old 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 marveled 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 wharf 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. torrential 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 drenched paperboy rode by delivering his soggy evening news...he stopped and asked if i would deliver 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 surprised, 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 presents...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 green branch 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 coal 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 beckoned 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 privy 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 curtain 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...mountains...tun- 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...mesmerized...invited all my friends over...and glad that uwe only had a small circular train set while mine was monumental...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 embarrassed 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 porridge...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 porridge burnt or otherwise ever a- gain...a five year old never forgets...the poison in an adult is insistence...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 crisp 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 embarrassed 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 separates. 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 height 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 effervescently. 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 swallowed 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 supreme. * 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 waft of yeast was intoxicating as was the rum she added to it. this year was no different. i helped her mix the ingredients and kneaded 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 assigned 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 frantic not knowing where i was...i was fine... i loved those nights...quiet...sometimes dark clouds obscured the stars... sometimes the whole vista 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 wink at 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 marveled 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 meteor it hit you you shielded 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 furniture 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 divine 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 whacked 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 crumpled 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 * ( INTERMISSION FROM THEN TO NOW by Klaus J. Gerken 2005 I loved that little garret where we lived on wilhelm heidzig strasse across from the Concordia Hotel where whores and sailors congregated and sang carols christmas eve and then the screams of pig killing in the yard in autumn and fresh smoked sausages in the spring toilet between the 2nd and 3rd floor stairs I fell down not once but twice and most times my father and I pissed in the sink because he toilet didn't work in the spring the fog so thick we would stick our arms through the open window and it would disappear and still we saw a brilliant sky with swirling stars and Van Gogh brilliance and the aurora borealis never ceased to amaze the kid I was and man I grew to be and there were the good times bringing lunch to my father in his barber shop with my dog Bingo lunch bag in his snout and passing the smoked herring stand where there was always a treat for us and then fascinated with the empty tubes of cream and hair tonic and the cobble stone streets and my father used to bring me some of those tubes and I kept wondering why they were so full and perfect and still so empty a little boy's imagination until one day I was late for school playing in the creek beside the rathause and frau berschorner slapped me in the face and hit my temple and I passed out it was then they had my parents take me to Hamburg for observation by a top psychologist and he decided my iq was much too high for my parents to give me proper care and so decided I should be sent to Switzerland to a school for "exceptional children" but my parents couldn't accept that and my father left for Canada on my 9th birthday a day where I was surrounded by friends and I ran away and cried and my mother stayed behind but soon I fell sick and none of the toys my father sent me would make me feel fine and so in July my mother packed up her belonging and left Bingo behind with a neighbour and took me to this strange country I was sea sick most of the voyage On the Akadia but made friend with a beautiful girl exploring the ship's nooks and crannies especially the ship's store where we got free candy and then we landed in quebec city and there was a photograph taken by a run down shack and my mother cried because this looked like poverty to her and she couldn't understand what was happening and when we finally got to montreal and my father picked us up and took us to a one room apartment next to a fire station on colberg street in sandy hill ottawa we were devastated and my parents argued a lot we moved 10 times in the next three years once because my father's landlord was a leningrad jew and found out my father was wounded there I was ten and invited some girls up on wilbrod street when my parents left for a party it was all innocent but I was made to feel humiliated and when we moved back to nelson street (my father had settled his differences with the landlord) and I found piles of adult magazines on the back porch and read them all summer long that year and in the winter did kamikaze skates down the steep slope to the street below many times almost getting killed that spring polly the cat appeared one night at our window and settled in my father's easy chair and stayed with us for three years my mother had an affinity for stray cats and the house was always full of warm meows while I read Superman and Classic comics on the floor deep in a fantasy and vivid history which never left me about that time my mother brought home a violin belonging to a lady she cleaned house for my father to fix I played with it and left it on the sofa and the like a stupid kid sat on it broke it and tried to glue it back together we stuck it back in the case and the woman never noticed I still have a mexican dagger she gave to me with chichicastnega carved in the blade it had a carved jackal handle and I broke on one the ears when I used it for target practice after we had moved to st laurent boulevard across from elmdale shopping centre where my father was the manager in a barber shop and that year kennedy was killed in dallas and i was in grade school and stayed home because i wanted to see and experience everything on our black and white television and my mother told the school principal he has a right to gather history and so my fate was cast i stayed home three days and watched it all and oswald's assassination by the mob and no one cared while little john stood guard and saluted his father's casket on a cold november afternoon the next summer i was kicked out of lutheran bible school for refusing to stop wearing a leather jacket and never went to church again you don't kill kid's like that... ) 2. 1208am 21 Jan 2011 OTTAWA, CANADA April 22 1958 L.A. Airliner, Jets Collide; 49 Killed LA Times Two Men, Boy, 10, Slain in Camp Bus Gun Melee 22.April.1958, Tuesday(Your birthday): You are born to a cruel world. Happy birthday little buddy! We hope you remember to enjoy your life which was a big journey from day minus 310 to today. That morning we took a taxi to the Neue Liebe Cuxhaven where the Homeric docked and where we gathered to see my father leave My birthday for Canada brittle day stood in the cold salt bone air ropes untied gangway retracted my father waving slowly fading Ulysses from Calypso's Isle far away a child's mind does not quite know the limits of its reason... Dark gray clouds drizzle not much wind from the west we went home mother and I to "celebrate" my birthday. * When we got home there was a surprise party for me they showered me with gifts sang happy birth day with ring-a-round-the-rosie me in the middle i broke down cried and ran as fast as i could into my room and wouldn't come out until everyone was gone that was the last birthday i "celebrated" * of course my father sent presents plastic toys a glider i used to throw at my friends in a game of dodge it was to destroy as best i could the memory of that day one by one the toys broke because they brought no joy to my heart to this day i accept with trepidation any gifts and giving i give everything away freely * my mother and i left for Canada 15 june same year on the Akadia arrived 10 days later 25 june her passport states a kid's adventure first few days exploring everything candy at the store and the pretty girl i met shared my adventure 'till it got rough 3 days sea sick in the lowest cabin my mother tended her sick child calm waters first land sighted newfoundland cruising to the first city of the Canadas docked a day quebec city plains of abraham where the country's "flavour" was decided we embarked had one day looked around photo of us and a fellow passenger: backdrop (start 11 mar 11) mother hated it cried old shack store shock first impressions always stick with you. On to Montreal just remember the warm sun and white concrete of the harbour Father was waiting for us A Studebaker drove to Ottawa Gatineau Hills and farm I remember the brown barns the most cows and a crow that flew across a field of corn Cobourg street what disappointment in my mothers eyes when my father only had a room for us I slept on the floor with my parents arguing A month later we moved to Nelson street The summer was so hot my mother put up wet bed sheets to cover the windows we had our first TV and I slept in as I remember strange in the front room when my parents argued they would shut the door The enrolled me in a private embassy school where German disciplines was practiced with continuation I was struck for not obeying orders came home crying Mother phoned the school and soon I was withdrawn and placed Osgoode Public School at Osgood and Nelson Streets They put me one year back for poor English which I learned in no time since Plattdeutsch was my native tongue they gave me a book: A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Lewis Stevenson It was my first introduction to poetry for having learned in such a short time But one year back I never recovered from Some kids called me a Nazi and I clicked my heels and stuck out my arm in a HH salute to counter their jibes detention was a pleasant loneliness no one else was punished By that time my mother had a job cleaning at the school I was proud of that When they wanted someone to illustrate the story of Goliath and Davis and I volunteered coming early in the morning and with coloured chalk drew on the blackboard after the story was read to the class the teacher erased it in front of all of us... I was crushed. Most remembered were the drills basement crouch against the walls drills crouch beneath your desk hands over eyes on no way look nuclear war was everywhere to a child the war was science fiction One day at home my parents were decorating the hallway and used a wooden door with a window as a table to stand on my mother screamed and my father said not now I have to finish this I yelled at him to stop and then he noticed my mother had stepped through the window and badly cut her leg we drove to the hospital that's all that I remember Sometimes when no one was looking I would leaf through the dirty magazines the owner of the house had hidden in the cupboard until my mother found them and threw them out We drove for picnics in the country and explored the summer I made friends and explored the neighbourhood I was just another kid on the block One day there was an argument my father and the owner of the house yelling at each other and my mother telling them to stop At the end of the month we moved out to Wilbroad Street 2nd floor Just a block away Years later I found out The landlord found out my father had been in Lenigrad as a German soldier in the war and the landlord's brother has been killed in the battle resisting them My mother implored but neither would budge Wilbroad street I only have one memory...an evening I was left alone and my parents went to a party...there were some girls I knew from school I was flirting with from the balcony and they asked if they could come up...I said yes But when at the door I changed my mind said they couldn't come in I regretted that My parents stayed away till dawn... I was only 10 years old... Then we moved back to Nelson Street. Same house...different side Think it was November 1958 I recall the first sight I saw out of the back window was an stunning blue, green Aurora Borealis I called my parents and we marveled at the curtain snaked across the otherwise black pristine sky My mother had spoken to the landlord and explained that my father was wounded before he even got to Leningrad and revealed her Jewish heritage and we were welcomed back again the landlord and my father became friends soon after we moved in I had my own upstairs room and there was a larger kitchen and a dining room and living room the kitchen floor was tilted and it came in handy when my mother left the tap running one day and the water just ran out the back This was the place of comics Superman Batman and especially Classics Illustrated hours upon hours of those with Marie reading... Winter coming on first snow christmas shopping Chapman's, Olgivies... Street cars jumping on off...they would never really stop... Snow was heavy that year building tunnels and igloos in the back yard skating at Sandy Hill Community Centre rink a magical environment for a kid... 50 years later Marie and I still reminisce and the danger posed free skating crouched down the hill dodging traffic not a few time almost got killed cursed by drivers - stupid kids! * Marie's stroll through Nelson Street 9 August 2010 my home or what is left of it.................... thank you so much Klaus!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 09 August 2009 at 20:16 and this was your home and what is left of it .. no more verandas in front............... 09 August 2009 at 20:19 so many times i went down the hill to go to the skating rink in winter and play in the park in the summer................. 09 August 2009 at 20:21 in my days it was all grass and earth instead of pavement........... 09 August 2009 at 20:24 i used to play with the little boy next door who was named Klaus;o))))))) 09 August 2009 at 20:26 i used to play with the little girl next door her name was Brenda.............. 09 August 2009 at 20:29 i used to play with the grandchildren of Mme Juneau in the white house..... 09 August 2009 at 20:31 the house that is being repaired was the home of our good friends the Dostaler's.................. 09 August 2009 at 20:32 i can see further down the house of our good friends the Larock family............... 09 August 2009 at 20:33 wow that's a pretty sight for a rough neighbourhood;o)))))) 09 August 2009 at 20:36 Osgood school.... i did a lot of bicycling in that yard.............. 09 August 2009 at 20:42 this is the house of Mme Proulx and my brother and i played many years with Jacques ,Lise and Carmel 09 August 2009 at 20:46 oh boy !!!!!!!that lane way brings back some naughty memories and all the good fun we had...... i want to go back home sniff...sniff..... 09 August 2009 at 20:48 that was the Gobeil's house they had nine children, we played with the youngest ones Jean et Francois............ 09 August 2009 at 20:49 i used to play with the little boy in that house on the right door his name was Claude St Jacques.............. 09 August 2009 at 20:51 i think i went in almost every houses on the street, well i mean from the people i knew since i lived there such a long time... no wonder i still dream about it........ 09 August 2009 at 20:53 in that block appt there was this little boy who was a bully with us kids ...his name was Bobby...i guess he must have been quite unhappy with himself for having that nasty attitude towards us ... but when he grew up he was ok 09 August 2009 at 20:57 that was the house of Mme Rochon her kids were to young for us to play with....... 09 August 2009 at 20:57 oh yes Mme Lefèvre's house her daughter was one of my friends........... 09 August 2009 at 20:59 i can see an empty space on the left, it used to be Mrs Brown's house a very nice widow with whom i chatted with on her front porch..... 09 August 2009 at 21:02 Osgood street ......that's where we went to get the goodies ,comic books and groceries;o))))))) 09 August 2009 at 21:08 Marie Cliche-Royer and hockey cards and the bubble gum that came with it...i still can remember the sumptuous smell...... 09 August 2009 at 21:10 i still have dreams that i'm walking on the street and i'm going back home... i lived there 18 years..... 09 August 2009 at 20:45 Marie Cliche-Royer * That year I was also in live with a girl from school who always followed me home one day we were playing in the snow and the neighbourhood bully jumped on her and kissed her and shouted "she's my rubber lips" and she laughed at me and I went home ... sad she'd be that way after spending so much time with me...but glad the finding out was a lesson well learned... and then the spring night of paving the laneway and the pile of gravel and at night my father and the landlord trying to work under bright lights which limited my universe and brought a feeling of containment to my mind... only the realm of the light mattered, and it was good, and it protected me from the darkness beyond. we moved again that year next to a church i remember wondering how good must i now be not to go to hell childhood thoughts can be such a monstrosity memory parents had a party late night as i slept they thought it was funny came in and booooo!!! startled awake wearing masks... thought it was funny almost rates with my 9th birthday celebration One does not forget such things... Next day they bought me a sword and shield to play with and other useless toy... Today I sometimes walk past the white house on Wilbroad street and look up at the veranda I loved the warm sun in the afternoon and once when I was ill friends visited me and it was a pleasant memory Then from what i can recall we moved to Balharie street a rented house I had to change schools new friends that winter i volunteered to flood the rink and then as crossing guard on St Laurant Boulevard I was proud of that That winter 1960/61 was a cold one I remember Marie visiting and we read comics together The story of Jean D'Arc which 60 years later we would discuss April came and my 12th birthday the field behind the house was still covered in a sheet of ice we had long winters then but the sun was warm and we would sit on the front steps and soak it up no fear of anything we fear so irrationally now... Spring finally came and we had visitors from New York, distant relatives He gave me a compass I have now still but broken pointing north on my book shelf my parents showed showed them downtown the new sparks street mall first in north america then after they had gone that summer the owner of the house wanted new windows picture windows only trying to install them himself he lost his grip and it shattered over his head he wasn't injured but quite humiliated precious moment to a kid then paying in the field shooting arrows and losing them in the tall grass until authorities told me to stop and the sparrow who flew into our window and was injured with a broken wing we brought her in tended to her over the summer and she nested in the room we kept the window open and each day thought her how to fly and she gained her wings and she came and went all the summer made sure the cats couldn't get in then when winter came she flew away and sadness darkened those days till one day next spring there she was tapping at the window tap tap tap flew right in and rested chirping on the shelf where the year before she had built her nest then one day one of the cats got into the room and she flew away never to return we waited and waited called and called nothing hope abandoned we were heart broken but the spring was lilac scented white and purple flowers that year we went to visit our relatives in New York City my father had a 55 buick then he let me drive it down the driveway in the spring i could hardly turn the wheel the car was like a tank we did 120 down the freeway not a rattle rode heavy on the road (The year before on our way to the Gatineau Hills for a picnic with friends we were caught in a slowdown with some trucks and our friend decided to pass all 5 of them on a straight stretch of road my father followed him we sped up and slowly gained on the convoy my father could only see our friend's car in front of us and then the car found a gap and took it revealing fast oncoming traffic a police car we were going at least 100 minimum right lane passing with at least another truck in front of us my mother screamed but my father as always kept his cool and since it was to late to slow down stepped on the gas missed the on-coming police car by an inch we were safe even at that tender age I knew i could have died looking back i saw the police and other cars stopping at the side of the road later they would track us down and shook my father's hand "best display of driving i have ever seen" the officer said... we were lucky that day...) stopped at a fast food place total 50's Happy Days... Then did the final 6 hours in one take entering NYC on my right we saw the 1960 NY World Fair grounds and on to Flushing in a huge slush of traffic no idea how my father negotiated that The neihbourhood was a street to the bay where we could see the prison and where planes used to cross to land a the airport This was the same neighbourhood years later where they would shoot "All In The Family" and down the road "Archie's Place" You can still see the house in the opening shot of each episode... (Polly Scratching on the window My mother wondered what it was Opening the door ...This cat walked in Tabby long haired brown And crashed my father's favorite chair And stayed He stayed for many years The chair was his whenever he was over But sometimes when he was gone My mother went outside The old wooden duplex on Nelson Street with the steep incline where in the winter I used to dare my friend to slide down the sharp sidewalk to the street below on skates dodging cars and several times almost getting killed and hear my mother call "Polly" "Polly" wondering where that cat could be on a winter night like this Un-be-knowns and only later found out there was a neighbour's wife who always wondered what woman was calling her husband late at night for he would come to the window or stand by the door and wonder When the truth was revealed they like good neighbours had a laugh and had a drink and the cat was in the corner liking his feet on his favorite chair while my father sat on the sofa finally knowing how the hierarchy of nature works Cats are so secure this cat was amazing 1960 Halloween We moved into a temporary flat waiting to move to a house in the suburbs Polly was gone and we looked for him and he was nowhere to be found among the ghost and goblins We were only there a week or so Never even unpacked the furniture The apartment's still there now over an antique book store just a block away from the university crowded with students I went once or twice pawning rare books for a penny when my marriage fell apart But Polly was missing that night and then the whole week My Mother searched the streets day and night and then we moved Polly was gone for good Or so we thought Sitting by the fireplace near Christmas eve in our new home miles and miles away from downtown Ottawa we heard a scratching on the door and then a plain "meow" my mother opened it Polly walked right in Sat on my father's favorite chair and stayed We had an icy winter Polly never left the house The first spring he met me at the road across from the school I went to walking home with me Never crossed the road always waited for the light Every kid knew his name That was also the year my best friend died hit walking home at night by a car never knew until I saw the story in the morning paper It was also the year the landlord tried to change the picture window and in a slow-mo moment crashed window over his head he wasn't hurt but Polly sat in the yard under the willow tree I'm sure wondering how stupid humans are strange year to say the least Next year we traveled to New York and Polly was alone happy in the tall grasses behind the house Polly always loved feasting on a mouse New York was ok Empire state building Times square And then there was Flushing found out why they called it that 12 I fell in love got disappointed lost on a subway train and finally found Home again Polly was there rubbing against my leg It was a good time I was growing up That is when we moved again This time to a small white bungalow across from the shopping centre where my father was manager of a barber shop and Polly who disappeared moving day found us a few days later settled in and purred meow 1963 I was growing up did some stupid things almost froze in a frightened winter broke an Aztec knife watched the fog bowl on tv discovered Scientific American and gathered many fossils which my parents threw out it was a year of happiness and it was also the year President Kennedy was shot I was off three days watching on TV The teachers were upset my mother said I was gathering History and she was right It was also the year I lost religion thrown out of bible class for wearing a leather jacket they would have thrown Jesus out I though for being nailed on the cross and that was the year we also got a german shepherd who my parent's found stranded in a quarry and took pity on We called him Rex and he was a most wonderful companion and then Polly having been away on one of his excursions noticed the change turned around and left and a few days later returned with a rat at the front door my father cruel he seemed to me that day chided him and Polly left I was so upset I could not leave my room That was when a Saturday Polly scratched the front door and my mother opened it Polly looked around saw Rex and said a very plaintive meow and walked away we never saw that cat again 13-16 November 2004) --- [13 apr 11] I climbed over the railing on the empire state building to look down straight down until a guard tore me away and told me never do that again we had so many photographs from there lost them all my uncle had a basement built like the inside of a ship wooden benches bar everything an 18th century trawler shd have and that is where i fell in love with his daughter 13/16 and i left late at night and sat in the '55 until my father came and said it wasn't safe out there... we did the sights like any tourist would broadway etc got lost on the subway someone brought me to a cop bought me an ice cream until my parents came damn subway doors shutting like that... * once back home marie visited me and we read jean d'arc history comic book together... after that they wd visit us and their son gave me a compass he had from serving in the army i remember cats birds and the neighbour's daughter so pretty and her brother was a star player with the ottawa rough riders football team she later went to hillcrest high like i would in 2011 someone wrote me "how could i forget her she was so beautiful..." later that year we moved to the white house on st laurent boulevard across from the elmvale shopping centre where my father had become the manager of the barber shop there polly of course found us i was so sad when polly left that winter i almost froze to death walking without a jacket or gloves or hat to vincent massey school in -30 temperatures i just made it to the school a crouched down in a corner outside someone found me brought me in and i stayed home recovering a week it was also the year of country music listening to on my rogers majestic radio and astronomy collecting fossils and my first typewriter a remington rand heavier than lead the year the queen mother visited and we saw her at landsdown park from the stadium the woodworking class where i made a desk a chair and wooden plate i still have...somewhere... the year i was thrown out of bible school for asking too many questions and refused entry when i came one sunday with a leather jacket it was then i made up my mind christianity was not for me in the basement of the next door house i discovered scientific america and the son and i would experiment with a chemistry set it was there that fall we watched the two day fog bowl that was 1963 the last year of innocence one day i came home and all my fossils were gone my mother threw them all away said it wasn't healthy to have rocks in the house i set up a makeshift private place in the basement and read dirty dime store novels i found the he garage i stole a playboy from the drug store and got caught i also wrote my first book on dinosaurs... the photos i got from the iga where i collected monthly installment of a dictionary and assembled models of and ships and the PT 109... an old man now it's all a blur... and then one november day came over the speaker at school "President Kennedy has been shot" mumbling in the air what did that mean? i distinctly remember something stupid i said to the girl in the next row "Well if he wants to get himself shot i guess that's his business" realizing as soon as I said it what i said... i went home that day and stayed home the next three days watching it unfold on tv the teachers were furious with my parents "He's learning history" my mother said. and boy did i learn my history i am no longer certain of anything least time... that winter was harsh... as if the earth had fallen under us... there was no certainty in anything the alaska earth quake unrest in europe no one trusted johnson and less trusted diefenbaker our reality was the small black and white philips tv screen and then it happened: "there is something happening in england" and the first sounds of something new came out of the cavern in liverpool that would change the world *** spring pond in back yard meet the beatles at Woolworth's earthquake rex phone call loss of polly mexican knife broken ear moved that summer atwater street highschool farms carsten rolling stones carsten brian and me overnight stay rock group 1st 12 string then j45 debbie was so lovely sock hop blowing up lab astronomy club meteor observing to legrave art teacher "i can teach you no more" cunningham latin the french teacher who had a nervous breakdown the haunted house chess games writing epic poems in class 1st stones album 12x5 1st dylan album highway 61 revisited at billings bridge the monkees guys being guys and girls blond on blond wanted to hear this alone beethoven the incredible string band 10,000 layers of the onion sprained hand playing rugby still went to class passed out from the pain mumps at 16 reading heinleim stranger in a strange land science fiction wrote a novel then like that midnight listening on a school night to first play of I am A Walrus as monumental as like dylan's stone weekend trips to kingston upper canada village algonquin park the day my father left the door on his old '55 open backing and tearing down part of the front wall of the house... the longest laneway shoveling by the time done had to start over again the year of the snow where you cd walk up to the roof but we are leaving the 60s... not there yet it was s time of opening the mind maharaja yogi manitas de plata paint it black monterrey woodstock andy warhol doors velvet underground beats lawwrence durrell justine movies we snuck in and hanging out on the farms that were still there where it's part of the city now stealing apples bee bee guns shooting pine cones i killed a sparrow shutter still today (the old man is tired tonight not certain of the memories) and the books...the books always the books... [18 april 11] * Walk into the darkness 948pm * the past is our future 1107pm * i have made what i have made if that is not enough for you i have made what i have made 1108pm * there is a rage in the darkness i walk towards that did not exist in the past a tear in the curtain of time perhaps more a mind that refuses to balance a mind that has seen the developing future and cannot comprehend that stature of the immobile consequence it bows to a contemptuous dilemma you cannot kill the future but erasing the past is not so difficult nor just changing the perception of its nature : what i talk about it this we run towards a blinding light blind we have no future. 1122pm * "I am old...I am old...I shall wear the bottom of my trousers rolled" 1126pm * 11-21 the sixties never left my mind we have imposed them enough on other generations let them find their own... 1128pm **** midnight 19 april 2011 the cats want me to go to bed i should stop drinking i'm beginning to look like barryman when he committed suicide... 1201am * i have no strength left tonight one more glass of wine and then i'll slip into a pleasant dream and...never mind. the universe is not a concept nor idea neither is the mind they function in their gears the rotunda of the cosmic clock has no hands nor hours counted it functions where we are today and not in any moment a universe for every thought eternal in horizon... 1208am * my poetry is never pretty it isn't meant to be it makes you think - like seeds planted in a gutter one sprouts every now and then... 1213am * time ticks slowly when young fast beyond the age of fifty slides at 62 859pm * 20 April 2011 One has to listen...listen. I want God to listen. Dumb angel...listen! Satan always does... 1249am * Old Bah! What are these memories? An old man's reminiscences, a fools desire to be young again; a desperate struggle against time that marches on no matter what? A resurrection that will never come. These old bones ache and will not heal again. I will not heal again. And my wisdom is a rotting cornucopia of once a fertile orchard, beyond reproach when I was young, now a tattered false reality. Wisdom ultimately destroys what we have built because what we have built is nothing. I am an old man, and nothing else; what I have accomplished is growing old. The past is an illusion that no longer has reality. It is what I invent looking back in desperation. Alas there is only this reality, this present dust that slowly settles and merges with the earth. One cannot till an arid soil, nor resurrect what no longer will appease the gods. 22 April 2011 12:47am * I am an old man I have no imagination left. 22 April 2011 8:57pm * Experts When I was born "experts" said I would not survive a day A week later "experts" said I would not survive a month A month later "experts" said I would not survive a year Then they said He will never survive the first five years guaranteed... When I was 8 years old my teacher slapped me so hard for being "stupid" I passed out They took me to Hamburg where the "experts" examined me And diagnosed me with a very high IQ Your parents can never provide you with the guidance you need they said They wanted to take me to a "special" school in Switzerland We moved to Canada the experts there said "he's a dunce" can't keep up with the other kids put him in a lower grade i faltered i was bored the experts said "stupid" in grade 9 i read Nietzsche they said you can't read that until grade 12 and banned me from the library when I went to collage they kicked me out of class for disagreeing with the professor... i left without a degree i was more intelligent than that even through 40 years of work they ignored me was quite happy with that got things done to their incredulity the always said he's "brilliant" give him all the work acknowledgement and pay was another matter now retired and at 62 they tell me my life's work of writing poetry is worthless "i delve into it every now and again" but the silence is a scream you wasted your life they shout no one reads or cares about you if that's the future of poetry best to be amused after all, what do "experts" know? kjg 6/8 may 2011 * Duhnen Beach 1957 Warm wet sand between my toes: Walking on the breast of Mother Earth. 8 May 11 - 323pm * rain so where were we somewhere in the 1960's somewhere between an adolescent "reality" and where adults are an aberration who know "nothing" we all go through that stage we all have to learn from experience sometimes not from guidance... guidance somehow shelters though not meant to be yet a roof does sometimes shelter youth from rain where one drop of rain might teach a lesson shelter not maybe not...i always liked the rain... so much for shelter... 8 May 11 -- 343pm * Leave me alone! I would dearly love to live among people, but I live among cats. I write my works in isolation. I observe; I listen; I sometimes criticize; But I never reach out to them. I live in harmony among my cats, craving the simple life, with claws for defense as a justified denial for the cause. 8 May 356pm *** Rainy Day Blues 18/05/2011 Sotto voce at desk wavy fingers tap white letters black keys sanity or not sometimes a super nova not a safe amalgam of connections dark sky noisy garbage truck city hums cool wet breeze stirs stagnant air cats waken pitch ears then curl back to sleep again 1234 wine fish and chips in oven star trek on tv M5 60's still stir the crumbling memory days spent walking with a cane from bench to bench morning groceries mostly cat food a bit for me and wine one works mostly thinking enveloped by an isolation that cannot be controlled think outside the box they cannot think outside the box this is how it's done they cannot understand there is another way they want to learn the process what can NOT be taught is a PASSION I was wrong sometimes all that can continue is a sample in the past for someone else away from it to gather it and make it new take from it a new PASSION I wanted someone else to make it new somehow that cannot happen this will die with me I cannot make it mainstream they will make it mainstream I cannot have that The fish is good Cod Om a hum benza guru pedma siddhi hum I tear into dead flesh I am of the sensibility of animals I renounce my "human" I do not want to be THAT KILLING MACHINE Humans have only "religion" to feel worthy of existence animals need only themselves we deny that we are the worse for it we think in concepts not in chunks of reality we are ripe for our own destruction sotto voce hasten it I am old an old man with a cane I no longer cut my hair or shave my face My beard grows long and grizzly And my hair blows in the wind I no longer bathe daily I have become in Durrell's wisdom "A covetous smelly old bookman." My cats are my companions Bruno the house master 9 years old this year and the two one year olds tearing up the place still exploring I revel in the stuffy air I sweat in the summer I drink lots of wine I write poems I edit Ygdrasil the first literary journal on the internet and after 19 years the longest continuous journal there I used to paint I used to write songs and play a mean guitar I worry about my reel to reel tapes decaying I need too move them to mp3 when I ask friends how to do this they refuse to answer me enough fish put plate in fridge back hurts walking take my calcium supplements strange knowing I have metal in my hip I make some metal detectors go off luck when I go into the store so leaving I have no hassle I should put the books on the floor back on the shelf I should do a lot of things Just no energy these days I was hoping to take longer walks than just to the store but the city decided not to put benches out so that deal's shot one woman said get a walker I say save my dignity but they do nothing for retired people retired people do nothing for society well I still do something even though the Ottawa literary scene ignores me with a passion seems strange to me i'm no threat to them I'm just outside their purview I destroy the status quo the are preoccupied with getting government funding i think government funding is fundamentally bad for art that of course is anathema funding leads to too much bad art there you have it dull day sweaty hate the humidity in this swamp I know many friends who have grown bitter in their ageing I wonder am I not the same? have I become lost in my own being? In my past where I can see no future? 130pm Sweet Chili brown rice crisps my once a month indulgency Cindy strictly keeps me on healthy food I cheat when I can I don't think at 62 and with a bum hip I'm going to begin running a marathon no she says but you have to stay healthy sometimes I wonder why Had a strange dream last night more surreal than many others I was summoned to Buckingham Palace to paint a portrait of the new pope the Queen had just appointed (strange enough) but the new pope turned out to be my long decease mother and she was struggling with the decision to accept the appointment The queen grew impatient and wanted me to convince my mother to accept but I decided not to do the portrait and my mother declined The queen was furious And then we are all attendants and staff waiting in a huge room to take a flight back to ottawa while curious and ugly mobs gathered in the thousands outside I woke when someone said it's time to go Getting a bit cold in here Close the window Take a piss Leaf through Everyman's Dictionary of Dates...last entry 1978 Check email Post an article from NASA on free floating planets on Facebook 202pm Short nap on the sofa bruno gets there first try the bed isodore wants a cuddle... jazzie and bruno join us i fall asleep for half an hour to a pleasant dream i now can't recall... up 249... cold in here Tired of being home went for a walk to Turning Point on Cooper Street to check on some DVDs Glass on the sidewalk outside my building long slow walk to Bank Street Past the United Church The Mosque Venus Envy next door The Salem Bible House across the street Sat down on the bench at Bank when some guy sits down next to me and coughs smoke in my face Welcome to the great outdoors in Ottawa Moved on across the street but two punks in black leather and Mohawks got to the other bench before me so slowly hobbled on Not too bad Lots of people out Past the Bake Shop where our poster shop in the 70's was next to the then RCMP Headquarters with specialties always available in the basement The Stereo Trading Post next door great selection of old videos each two dollars but nothing in order a pain finding things but lots of other junk bought all my tv's there 20 or 30 each and my dvd players the last one for 20 I think Walking into Turning Point I always feel like I'm back in the 60's and it seems like they have been there that long Rub by brothers one is confronted with a wall of original Rolling Stone magazines on the wall behind the counter where just recently they added the original Butcher Beatle album Tom tells me he found in the record section upstairs No one knows how it got there the price tag is $1,000.00. I found The Sherlock Holmes Collection with Peter Cushing on DVD, and 3 early Hitchcock movies and then a quirky passion 4 B movie horror classics from the 30's and 50's always something new for my collection... after that I stopped in at the Pet Circus and bought two small vials of catnip...the cats love playing with the containers... Then rested a bit on the bench near the chip wagon...some commotion near Nepean Street with police cars and ambulances...then went home... The cats were waiting for me all excited...especially Isidore... all over me as I was resting on the bed... then the catnip...they all took turns and then evening meal... almost 5pm now Star Trek Next Generation on TV... watch some of the DVD's this evening or later...always good to have something on hand to watch when things get dull...which seems to be a lot lately with this morose weather... So on to Star Trek Voyager tackling medical priorities the higher on the scale of service you are the higher your medical priority one has to wonder what creeps beneath the floor of our society Jazzie on my desk too cluttered eh? stamping around thinking then one calculated jump to the top of the book shelf and womp then down...Jazzie you're supposed to be a cat! maybe you should go on a diet! Meow? And at 6pm the news is all the same it runs in cycles you come to realize each 30 years... we used to say they have a new guide for this now it's a new ap... and wars and peace talks never end... just new names and it's like an endless war on cancer it's always close never there just like religion... one has to wonder with all the money the drug companies make how much funding they provide... and why does the government cut back? lot's of money in disease... as I've always said guns are cheap money's in the ammunition. Vancouver goes to the Stanley Cup and the cats are asleep all around me... There a pleasant darkness in this room not like the dark cloudy darkness earlier today... I have not watched my dvds I will later watch one or two... No new messages Nothing new on Facebook haven't posted anything another glass of wine just to get me through the night the nights of women are over i am a satisfied monk * if no one made money off it none of this would be happening i wonder if there are any artists left who have a passion for their art? Faust is alive and well... in every book every song every painting what a glorious world where art is a commercial...30 seconds in the life of the consumer. * socco voce take us now * 745 my phone rings the cats run to answer it they knock it off the table whoever it was hung up * 8pm Hound of the Baskervilles Arthur Conan Doyle... Peter Cushing Should be good if I don't fall asleep and soon time for treats the cats are already eager... * I always enjoy watching the cinematic renditions after reading the originals... this seems good... * 914 enjoying Hot immensely * the ending was too dramatic not the ending of the novel... or the Russian version... * 10pm time to go to bed... that was my day. * Jessie's on the window sill, Issue's on the chair; Bruno wants a belly rub and catnip's everywhere! 21 May 2011 *** the morning is a dark marauder ripping through the cavities of mind 348am 24 may 2011 "He travels on, a solitary man; His age has no companion." -- William Wordsworth Sometimes it is better to preserve a memory than to update an illusion. *** i no longer speak to people i speak of a world known only to myself i know longer speak to people about anything 9 June 2011 *** I just sneezed: my cats are hugging the ceiling!!! 10 June 2011 *** Spaceship . a dream . Answered an ad Help wanted on a commune Got there Building like a school surrounded by heavy woodland Needed clearing they said There were two elders and several families Everyone helped the kids were give 1/4 the chores in the fields as the adults planting and gathering produce from the gardens The were home schooled everyone helped with preparing the meal taken in a large communal room there were non religious "prayers" where nature was thanked for the abundance everyone was courteous to the other the children well behaved . I did the heavier work along with the men clearing the woodland around the building I was to stay only the summer but came back the next year and stayed . After many years I began to call this place my home There were also others who joined us The house had a communal area at one end and living quarters at the other One day we were all called together in the room we ate our meals in and the elders said that it was time we asked time for what and they said you will see and there was a rumble and bright flash of light outside the windows and it felt as if we lifted off and I asked the elder a space ship? and the elder said not exactly a time/dimensional shift it won't take long and then it stopped everyone ran around excitedly we calmed down and a quite pervaded the room a door opened and slowly we made our way through it and what we saw amazed: . We were in a great circular hall covered by what seemed to be a glass dome it was so huge that we were just barely able to see the end of it There were several moons circling and great minarets reaching to the sky and people came up to us people in strange suits dark blue shiny suits and they greeted us with curiosity and the elders went up to two of them and greeted them with a bow you have come they said and they introduced me and there was no verbal communication just pure thought and it was joyous and the children played with other children and the adults touched our foreheads and we understood a great communication and we arose into awareness of a universal love . and then I woke... . Klaus J Gerken Dream 12 June 2011 5:05 am written down * When I was young. I knew how old I was; now old, I forget how young I was. 950ph 17 June 2011 * Who tosses a stone must receive a stone... 17June 2011 * I wish the night would last longer; the day is such an inconvenience. 24 June 2011 * I am a simple screaming soul. 27 June 2011 * Poetry is the search, not the conclusion. 2 July 2011 * I am the evening and the night; my shadow keeps me thus. 9 July 2011 1:10am * I have a passion for dreams... a sleep without dreams is a sleep wasted... 11 July 2011 [3698]