ASSIMILATIONS by Klaus J. Gerken (1978) I they indulge themselves selfishly not knowing of the hunger they have so long avoided they tend to think of others as non-achievers as those who would rather starve than work for a living they do not realize who the lazy ones really are they avoid the question and the answer they talk with their mouths full they drink the best wines and never know the difference between the best and the worse they judge everything by the price tag they indulge themselves while others starve and when they don't get everything they think they need they think they're suffering well maybe they are have pity on them for they know not what they do have pity on them because they do 2 march 1978 II deep night dark and floating through infinity no lighthouse anywhere to guide us home having pretended this much there is only the pretension of reality to wake us up 3 march 1978 III Come over and we'll have a drink together whereto are you going you say you life has been a failure that you re going to live on a commune go ahead then - i'll not raise the subject again for no matter how many clear days there are there will also be cloudy ones too. 4 march 1978 IV For her I have a house on avenue q in the east end of the city for a long time there has been no one to see me the place is always empty Through the day i pass the time doing very little and have no plans to do much more There is nothing to stop me from drinking or writing a poem worth nothing All you really have to do is come over and i'll be waiting here to welcome you 4 march 1978 V Downtown Ottawa after morning rain dust has settled on the streets in this lounge it's very comfortable come drink another glass of wine i hear you are going out west how will you like it with no friends out there? 4 march 1978 VI i see you walk down by the river in the early morning mist as i come closer i see tears in your eyes you say that you must leave but it is not because you want to i do not understand and bid you elaborate you say your love for me's no longer strong that you cannot stay where i am also you turn away and leave me standing there the morning mist will turn to rain the past will not return again whatever has been lost will now remain. 4 march 1978 VII i drink a cup of wine in this winter's solitude and when i'm done i'll drink another one to keep me in this mood and softly pass the time to finish this poor rhyme. 4 march 1978 VIII the streets down through the city once they were so busy no one walks there anymore the city is deserted lost to time eternal until some archeologist dug into the graves now it's bustling with tourists still the city's empty devoid of any life the tourists come and go the silent streets remain. 4 mar 1978 IX peripheral madness stalks the crowd when one is lost one can't be proud. 4 march 1978 X the chinese poets are serene the romans boasted nationalistic pride the germans write of and that and of philosophy while the french extol the virtues of love and wine the american poets talk of war or otherwise translate the canadian poets try to find a culture without knowing what to look for in themselves 4 march 1978 XI if one poem isn't enough write another at least if they are bad the'll have some company. 4 march 78 XII a poem is the greatest think devised by man to make him think. 4 march 1978 XIII it's not that one hates writing like one hates a job one goes on with both complaining every now and then but while in a job we might be slaves with poetry we bind our own fate. 4 march 1978 XIV there's this desk i sit day after day trying to compose a poem the desk faces a wall that's the only inspiration if i see the wall move i know i'm drunk if it doesn't i'll be sobre either way i'll probably write something the difference being in one state i know i'm writing bad in the other i'll just know i'm writing in one state i'll be happy and won't care in the other miserable because i do that's the way this writer works cautious of the fact that once a write cares too much her might as well resign himself to the fact that he cares more for pleasing others than he does himself 4 march 1978 XV alas one writes poems about politics love hate and war one writes poems about philosophies about artificial intelligence history mythology in fact one writes poems about anything that strikes the mind at the time a poet takes his pen to paper and the way it goes is that this poet never really thinks about the poem he will be about to write never he will stain the page with ink and will himself wonder at the words this ink blot forms this poet simply writes with no intention to do anything else than to express the feelings of the moment any revision will come as an afterthought but the first seed... 4 march 78 XVI a long time ago i used to write a lot more poems than i do today i used to spill out my guts to these blank pages as if they were a confession of sorts and perhaps they were at least it got things off my chest and i could even say i wrote a poem although that poem might never be a "published poem" (who would want to read it?) but whatever it was it kept me going and that's exactly what i'm doing now i keep going an and on as long as i am able and as long as i keep going i will never give up the dream because if i did i could never be a poet to myself or anybody else 4 march 1978 XVII i don't care if anyone reads these words it's enough just to have written them like fine wine one doesn't care about aesthetics when one's thirsty. 4 march 1978 XVIII two shoes not to be worn they stand in the hallway where sejanus once walked but that was long ago if history were lateral then we'd still be there (check dunne his works more than anyone express the totality of time and timelessness) 4 march 1978 XIX as a brothel keeper claudius wasn't very good he stuttered when he got nervous which was most of the time and since gaius didn't like anyone with a speech impediment claudius had to take it as a man escaping several times the iron thrust between his ribs but he lived long enough to become emperor with very few of his ancestors at his side 4 march 1978 XX i never knew one could hallucinate on pernod until one day we found a ghost not wanting to get involved in our affairs 4 march 1978 XXI if we know these things then might we know the other things we do not know? 4 march 1978 XXII however uncertain these images be clear in knowing that they are projections from our own uncertainty understanding is such a fragile thing the truths that shall be known are always there it all depends on what we see as in a cavern on finds darkness as in the light a shadow and at the farthest end is Plato laughing at the feast laughing at those who try so hard to understand and still can't see that they have understood already 4 march 1978 XXIII the pregnant spring soothes tarnished wounds 4 march 1978 XXIV Gaius/Zeus it was he who thought he was a god perhaps he was the gods are not beyond reproach he discovered this when he tore open his sister's womb and ate the unborn child if mortals imitate the gods who do the gods...? 4 march 1978 XXV i heard on the news the other day that some scientists have succeeded in cloning a human being if the story is true then there will be an added dimension to the ancient saying that there is a double for every person born somewhere in this world 4 march 1978 XXVI what use is knowledge to those who will not use it? what use is life to those who will not live? what is anything to those who live in fear of who they really are? 4 march 1978 XXVI we were so much younger used to listen to dylan or the stones formed a group and tried to learn their songs wond'ring if we'd ever gain their heights many years later now dreams have slowly shattered one by one our lives have changed so very much wondering if somewhere we missed a chance that had been presented that we thought beneath our "dignity" 4 march 1978 XXVII a poem is bittersweet when it makes us laugh and cry at the same time 4 march 1978 XXVIII fragments when the fragments come together to make some kind of sense some kind of understand of a process is involved not to gather them but to see them for what they are the total sum of everything and where the fit a poet's complete oeuvre is like that gathered into one single poem expressing something new 8 march 1978 XXIX SONG she was so very beautiful standing in the door I looked around the room and knew I'd been there before i used to think this isolation could not be endured but soon she soothed the atmosphere and my emptiness was cured we drank some wine and floated through the universe of infinite arrangements as time became reverse she knew that i was frightened she held me in her arms but somehow it was nothing except a false alarm the truth i now accepted the mind became more sure her eyes they told the story of how we met before we knew each other in a time both could not endure there was no perfect ending there was no "love so pure" at morning light i left her she did not follow me i guess i never thought she would she told me she was free and i myself did not look back the morning was too hard a beggar walked on down the street "we all must play our parts" 8 march 1978 XXX there's a voiceless deluge without refrain like the win that never ceases to exist but lets itself be known by the calm before its storm it simple means that we must learn the signs realize that the quieter the voice the more active is the mind 10 march 1978 XXXI Voltaire It's not easy to define the man His greatness will attest to that. 10 march 1978 XXXII i'm in the mood to write only one thing tonight and this is it 11 march 1978 XXXIII THE LONESOME SOUL I met an old woman who spoke to herself on a lonesome street. She spoke to herself and kept on laughing, she spoke to herself walking down a country road. Child, how can you understand why people speak like that? When the street is long and no one wants to walk there, a person speaks to himself. When fear and sadness fall like arrows, why should not a traveler speak with himself? An old woman, on a lonesome street might, always with laughter, babble with herself, to stifle tears. Woman, you are sad! Well, so am I. 13 march 1978 - (translated from Armattoe) XXXIV Belief is a tree. It grows in the desert. Belief lives in the hope vainly at times that god will make it rain. Belief is tender trust at times in vain. 13 march 1978 (tranlated from M.F. Dei-Anang) XXXV ah yes and it truly is the same as if it were not that is if anything else were and that which isn't would be that which was the consequence of its own action then it truly would be the same and if it were not the a priori truth of its a posteri revelation 13 march 1978 XXXVI so what we hold as true might be a falsehood as the shadow that we see cast from a double sun it's the experience of having known a certainty no matter how false which connect us to the understanding of ourselves in this perpetual uncertainty we all are living in 14 march 1978 XXXVII i stood there at the corner of a deserted street on a very dark wet night from the distance came faint sounds of merry-making a door opened a flash of light and a shadow appeared then darkness enveloped the shadow and it disappeared and all was quiet i lit a cigarette and listened for a while to the sound of darkness embracing each sensation like a storm after i had smoked my cigarette i went back to the bar and ordered another drink my ship it leave this morning and my girl has left me for another man a russian sailor of all things if i had known this earlier i would have drowned myself in the dark north sea as it is i'll ship out in a few hours for south america not much difference there. 14 march 1978 XXXVIII a poet is a great big liar even when he tells the truth 14 march 1978 XXXIX and the cold north sea where i was born lies heavy on my soul the salt sea air deep in my nostrils even now and works a kind of charm in me i am one with that it will always be a part of me even far away i spent my childhood there i knew each single street and each secret passageway and most of all i knew myself who i was and was meant to be knowing that i miss the most i no longer have that certitude and the cold north sea where i was born lies heavy in my soul imprinted on my memory imprinted on my skin imprinted on every breath i breathe it's a terrible thing for a man to be away from ancestral ground he's forever searching far away he's searching and even when he get's back home because he's been away so long he can't again call home an exile forever to himself and others 14 march 1978 (with additions 2 aug 2002) LX ADVANCE The more they have the more they lose and the more they lose the more they want how can satisfaction ever reign? 19 march 1978 LXI enough to speak the word to keep the silence sanctified to know the perfect moment no one comprehends through silent sacrifice all we might possess enough to hear the voice that within us speaks without a word or sound but perfect clarity enough at least to try enough to reason why... 21 march 1978 LXII clear water brightens to eclipse the sky 21 march 1978 LXIII there is no way in and no way out no windows and no doors there is no light but neither is there darkness there is only the eternal presence of eternity even the earth might look like heaven when viewed from hell as the light from a candle might look like the sun when one emerges from the darkness and is blinded b a shadow. 21 march 1978 LXIV everybody would like to be great without the effort but none the fool in the attempt 22 march 1978 LXV the greater the hope the greater the sorrow 22 march 1978 LXVI those who are great must always in the back of their minds fear that their greatness is blinding them and they are not really great but faking it 22 march 1978 LXVII one day he wrote a poem and he thought it was good and he published the poem in a magazine he was very proud then a critic came and tore the poem apart the poem was great and it survived but the poet killed himself 22 march 1978 LXVII not one wall but four not the world but another world deep inside so that those who bleed might know more 22 march 1978 LXVIII silence the single silence of obscurity frightening 22 march 1978 LXIX TRANSCENDENTAL EXPERIENCE If you listen long enough... 22 march 1978 L CLASSIC SYMPTOM "it depends on this and it depends on that and it depends on a lot of things... and since i don't know a lot of things it just can't depend on me" 25 march 1978 LI Ausonius sending some verses requested by his friend Paul asked that he drink some wine before reading them - he said "I've never written for a fasting man" and that's really the way I too feel about it - there are many poems written to be read while sobre that need a lot of pre- and after-thought which cannot be achieved with a clear head - but my verses speak to the emotions - not that I Would consider them shallow on that account - but they were written to commemorate a certain type of mood that cannot be achieved without a glass of wine So drink my friends - drink before you read and you will discover a world within these poems not achieved when fasting in a library of hardened thoughts. 24 march 1978 Copyright (c) 1978/2002 Klaus J. Gerken