The Shorter Poems from: BLOODLETTING By Klaus J. Gerken (1972) I Bleeding profusely her severed veins breed inconsequence - (The immobile unit of her dreams - placate of innocence - are never what it seems) Her prince has vanished all too swiftly like the razor's edge (The inanimate proposal fathoms through her heart - she finds no other reason, knows no other part) The windows rattle fervent pleas according to the ways of Bedouins invoking Allah's mercy and his praise yet to no avail - She is lying very still - her face, so smooth and yet so pale! (Visions of Ophelia lying in her veils - flotsam down the river - lilacs in her hair: that vision never fails) The trees perform a pantomime, swift and rallied to a cause - (Her spirit has been lifted; forced to flee her fate) And now the sirens wail and hover by her side, now as much too soon as late: the final agony the end of life and love's debate. August 1971 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- II Very low the light must be to accentuate the atmosphere Very low the light remember the aura of a gibbon mood the dusk within an agile wood and the solitary ray of light from that candle burning for in that candle burning (nucleus of all creation) burns the heart of man burns the heart of man. August 1971 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- III Fragile child of the universe broken harshly by her loneliness She rode the motions of a false existence through the backlog of her days The arid wasteland of her fantasy indulged in once too often promised her the attributes of a goddess hate must sometimes soften It wasn't possible the true gods do not grant favours to mere mortals anymore only the false gods of the industry could grant her immortality and take it just as fast and their immortality like the rotten cancer wounds much more than death it mutilates it grants beauty and in dying looks alive... September 1971 - revised 26 December 1993 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- IV The quiet disease that has fenced us in with violent emotions, fear and hope, has shattered whatever dreams where appeased to as... As the copper kettle boils the water through the screaming metamorphosis, so are we branded: strung against the passing of our hate and cast adrift in the cinder jungle of life's plots like the lobster kicking, screaming fervent whistles through the agony of death. And like that lobster, society, that flat-faced, white-washed wall of mindless fat, programmed only to a section of a lie, consumes us... Yet the difference being, that the process stands initiated by ourselves - the marauders of our fate - no use then to blame it on the universe, the gods, or any other curse... The seasons come and go, and only the future stays the same, and the entity of life, our life, has lost its reason to the artificial flavour of and artificial dream. September 1971 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- V Waiting all we ever do is wait the rain comes tapping on my window like some deluded woodpecker clouds move through the clogged-up sky in an endless array of predilection ebb and flow rise and fall mordantly like a rampant cancer spirals to the sky we are dumb with frost and watch the rooftops crumble in the blight of poverty while on this poor earth on the rain-drenched streets or in comfortable apartments sheltered from the wind warm fireplaces perhaps the essence of our lives (survival) we perceive ourselves to be those who wait those who wait their fate among etchings of rain conscripts of sun birth death hope and loss wait in suffering pain joy and mordant disability the building crumble neath the weight of centuries silent dusty still tenacious energy beneath the seams of history yet this artificial notion this mutant bliss vivacious panic envelops each successive phase deserts us now derelict infinity sole limbo this we must wait a silent figure huddles motionless in a doorway dangling cigarette lodged between his lips the smoke looms large and lingers on pretentiously when it dies the man has gone into the shadows the glowing cinder butt like burnt out days and years whole cycles in the lives of men woman children characters in a shadow play all that will remain has remained we pull the curtain farther back wipe the steamy haze from window pane we await the man's re-emergence from the tomb who a few moments later like a risen Christ emerges like a sunken raft upon the slimy cobblestone lights another cigarette pulls his collar up above his ears and walks briskly through a fog of rain toward another door we do not see the man again we let the curtains fall you speak in quite whispers as if the walls could hear merging with a symphony of time and space a candle flickers a candle flickers on the table a candle flickers on the table in the draft the motion of our shadows waiting here for love. September 1971 - revised 25 December 1993 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- VI I stood naked in the rain - preposterous you say - waiting for a girl, eyes sunken like a mask - a beggar - a blind man with his vision-dog - criteria for a day. I sat nude upon my bed. the girl beside me drenched in sour cream and red war paint remained long within her teens. I gave up after about two hours and made love to her. she cried aloud "Oh God!" and then she left my body soaked in sweat. Tonight I am alone - the mountains and the sea move their bodies near to me - How much can we take? Less than compliments perhaps. I remember something she mumbled just before she left: "You are fast becoming a mask - with a private harem - thirty woman and a god!" I countered with, "Prosperity." September 24/25 1971 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- VII In the front seat of a car - any car - what do I care who's car? - This car for starters! Reading Bodansky's Introduction to Psychological Chemistry; third edition, 1934, when, stunned by season's raincast flushed away between us and the bridge across the Ottawa. Why me? Why us? I yelled at the fluorescent lights and shared a bottle of dark wine between us... "Are you alright?" someone, a girl, in the back seat asks. Yes yes yes - I wave the sun away, yes, but so magnificent the lights upon the oil bright bay... listen - can you feel the river breathing scrutiny? It is eating us alive! swallowing whole my soul my limbs! like some divine laughing sailor drowning Close your eyes Close your eyes! The engine purrs the window sings half open - a drizzle - stings like a fleet of wasps... Headlights glare on the adrenalized pavement a vivid fluency of light cast indifferently against the iron railing of the bridge... heralding the thunderous arrival of our destiny "Where are we?" "In Hull" "What time is it" "2 a.m." "Not that...What Time Is It?" "Eternity" "Ah yes, eternity!" "Let's get some beer" Livid somnambulistic diaphanous refrain... Sept 25 1971 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- VIII I have lost all sense of humour, I retreat I lay bare the congruencies of a vacuum lost in the realm of voice o you who leave your cell to bear the burden of the self in craven bands of sub-innocents I am mute o graceful innocents! I compose a hermitage of smoky insecurity o sanctified few that bear the burden of the world alone and separate (listen to the ravings of a madman o the few of you who tend the bowers of acceptance you who pass no judgment upon this age but listen with attentive ear...) I write alone by candle now I who have no choice and must be by myself... I am the sum of all the negatives I who am the positive predominance of a meiotic dream O and how I've dreamt the conflict of the wind! that scatterbrained aroma of a cinder! - If I dare... so I dream within the dream I fortify the wasted cycle of the age... I live and die within a cage... and the city that surrounds knows not anything amiss I who only feel the weight of someone's kiss! Oct 17 1971 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- IX you despise the wind o you who have no freedom of your own Oct 18 1971 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- X Buildings dull and yellow in the wind blasted, cracked discolored marble, through the shallow climate of time's harbinger. The atmosphere itself is not to blame It's mankind's harmony that is to blame. A cold and harsh environment, made of this, divinest of all comedies, a tactical mistake. After all: When the wind powders its nose, we sneeze. October 18 1971 - revised 25 December 1993 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- XI Bring me a beer, you luscious tavern girl. I would have you had I no complaints today! But the world is rough and the seven winds do nothing for my health. This weak peyote dream That makes me slither through the dark permissiveness of night has come full circle (grant me one more beer...) So, it's come to this, then? Well, can't say that it wasn't bound to happen... only myself to blame... I drink a false and mordant pride lured through rugged landscapes that resemble ghostly pale and barren wastes... And with no star to guide me back, I stay here keeping warm... Tavern girl! Another beer! I've a hundred more complaints to go... And maybe then there's time for love... Oct 19 1971 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- XII No, it wasn't life that stopped me from giving shouts of joy and joining the festivities rather it was the existence of a lesser time which startled me as if I hadn't seen the ghost - a face so deathly earnest, pale, while the flower-girl delivered orchids and my life was still an un-read book the orchids were old and almost wilted the book had a voice of strange reversal in it like the mirror i consult to comb my hair and exhume the severed scraps of age suddenly, I thought, and this is how it all must end, like an eagle swoops, and thus its prey consumes beneath the wings of destiny. no, it wasn't life that ceased the corner of a smile, it was death I saw, that told me how to live between the useless monuments and meteors of time mingled with the capture of a pawn - important only insomuch as which re-builds a universe with nothing captured inbetween. Nov 23 1971 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- XIII Why doesn't someone answer me? The ravished knock upon the door, The silent plea, felt with eyes consumed in tears that flood the universe no more - On mondays, cold and rancid mondays, when you leave the cell for a dismal day in town, you come and search for endings... search beginnings which you've lost, somewhere, in the future, in the past... You dare not even speak to friends - dare not even let the women lead you through the hinterlands of time - Not this monday... dare not show your true deliverance Yes, on mondays when the world explores for you the frenzy and the difficulty of this whole kaleidoscopic mesh, you feel, so much more alone than dreams and all the silences averted by the counsel of the dead-wise - On mondays, every monday, through the testaments and sermons that have tackled you in the mad disease of hope you slowly come to grips with life and gather in the garden fresh weeds and thorns with roses bleeding in your mind. Nov 24 1971 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- XIV In november when we die from salty over-exposure, we are prepared to walk the easy promontories of our death, searching futile arguments for less easy answers than there are. The wild wind shoves its lucid fingers through my hair - the wet and slashing pavement becomes the mirror of my time. My eyes - a tearful insecurity. I have reasons enough to forgo life's portraiture; reasons enough to say I die, save somewhere death, this malnutrition of cosmogony - loin cloth to infinity comes to me with wounded arms saying "what is flesh and how can flesh do harm?" And then there is the shadow - soul within the soul reflected agelessly in the hollow conquesting of night Cold harsh and empty That is life The final statement of divinity. Sept 21/22 1971 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- XV I empty here the last bottle of wine that has been offered me pouring some libation unto earth as is the custom when a broken person drinks the blood of god (and I have seen the voiceless multitude hunger in despair for the drop of water is not there) I hold the glass with its full fuming nectar to the light ah! how clear and brilliantly bright the aura is! yet the flavour tastes of salt and all the body has become the water of the sea seeping through the earth (I am frightened as if this blood drinks me!) Am I now the hunted or am I still the predator: or can it be I will be the silver daggers sacrifice? I have now stepped into unclear thoughts - I am now both devil and of god - I am beggar I am king I am child among the constellations marveling... I am man who with all his power still must bow to death... But still the master now I pour libation unto Hades. I am born of dust dust I am... January 15 1972 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- XVI There are those who journey long and silent through the nervous irony of night There are those who leave all hope behind in search of higher things stumbling with the torments of the universe upon their backs barefoot over jagged razor rock - There are those who've tasted sweet and bitter, good and evil reality and dream... There are those that are of Jesus (martyr and savior, sacrifice) There are those which are of Judas (Scapegoat and betrayer, god's clear instrument) They are brought together shouldering the burdens of a god (fragile children of the universe) and so, together but still, silently, alone - they listen as the image in the mirror expound his doubts and fears. They see him kneel before the alter sweat upon his brow deep in prayer (do I dare disturb the universe?) And if I dare... He slowly...solemnly raises himself to god but god refuses him in that he let's his head fall slowly...solemnly into his calloused hands and slowly...solemnly almost without vanity finds himself alone... Oct 19 1971 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- XVII Listening to Bellini's Norma I think of you... There stood a distant murmur somewhere in the night as the fog settled unperturbed around us yesterday You danced like a little child freer than the teasing wind, yes you did I was there... You can't deny it now... You held my hand and seeming so much like a fragile vase introduced me to a fantasy an innocent temptation and a dream... and now awaiting what the universe conceives for us I attempt a moment soft as holding you forever to my heart... Listen love, there are voices in the silence also What do they say? They whisper of things so secret only lover know when fast asleep dreaming of togetherness. Return to me... Oct 20 1971 - for Marion Todd --------------------------------------------------------------------------- XVIII Standing huddled in the cold, frozen ears, and headaches, they wish they had some place to crash, other than the empty debilitating street; the empty restless contradictions of this city - ripe with government - and so much hunger poverty disease... drinking cheap red wine to forget the frost which binds their toes in a flinching pain... which tears asunder bodies raked with a nervous disposition of a poison dream...(these kids escaped the war, and now must starve and live like this demeaned...)... Nothing ever comes their way... Perhaps some dope, but pot's expensive and who's got money anyway...they go on living...livid eyes...huddled in the doorway of their lies... Truth is, some will die this winter, and some (the lucky ones) will go to jail... but none of them go home... Nov 24 1971 - revised 25 Dec 1993 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- XIX ah how beautiful this is!!! there is black where once was emptiness! all we have need to do is done the radio all set up save the batteries books: Chichesters - Gypsy Moth Circles the World Mrkitch - The Serpent and the Butterfly Daniken - Chariots of the Gods? Lilly - The Mind of the Dolphin we have completed the process as begun by us there is life even if the universe is cruel 10 01 1972 ; 23 14 50 the date is superficial what is the date? good luck Ch jac'd'arc or are names another form of distortion? time is most supreme there is no revolt we have recited Finnegan's Wake and are well kjg Jan 10 1972 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- XX I have made parley with the whale after finding limits in this world which was made to suffer by the uselessness of man I have made parley with the whale those who understand much better than the human lot... 25 Jan 1972 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- XX I have made parley with the whale after finding limits in this world which was made to suffer by the uselessness of man I have made parley with the whale those who understand much better than the human lot... 25 Jan 1972 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- XXI often frail our craft lies battered by the whiplash of the serpent sea at time like these it is often best to reduce sail, rigging up jib and mizzen or even only a single jib - but never letting to completely and flounder like a cork, no mind no life before us cast that is not the way to conquer life - like is conquered only if we strive forward helping elements help us... Jan 26 1972 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- XXII i am always near to you as in body as in mind - tempting me the most you tempt me best... gentle slayer of my dreams, I love you so! then why do I feel so alone? "only the wind that rattles, gale force, through your bones can answer that..." but the wind does not know love Jan 26 1972 - for Marion Todd --------------------------------------------------------------------------- XXIII In reality of dreams I have sailed that stretch of southern ocean where the god Poseidon divides the earth - I have been lost there washed ashore like some brave Ulysses to return again and conquer yet once more the subterfugal force of nature's vast extremity. And life is hard, hard as anything the sea sets forth - and i am one who does not liken to society as to the stars and the wide expanse of ocean solitude I am one who's life is like Burton said "For something lacking in one's self." and whether it be god or man the sea will show what way it can. Jan 28 1972 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- XXIV where plastic touches water and water touches you i touch you your skin is soft enchantment on my lips oh daughter of the universe i cannot hope to understand for fear of losing you for fear of having you confined when freedom breeds the only life that you have known oh daughter of the sea my mind is crazed with fever when away from you and yet my Aphrodite you will always be there when again i touch plastic water touching water touching you Jan 28 1972 -- for Marion Todd --------------------------------------------------------------------------- XXV flower pressed between the pages of a book which tells the story of our meeting how on a night beside the plastic river our bodies intertwined and loving flowed and how as a flower pressed the memory lingers long and silently in dreams i shall be going soon as spring becomes the circle one year exactly since we met i wrote you songs that you would sing so absentmindedly o womanchild so beautiful and rare i love you so. Jan 30 1972 -- for Marion Todd --------------------------------------------------------------------------- XXVI nothing tempts me more than death that so perfect indicative state of being cast adrift savouring the last experience we will all experience death in one way or another but what strikes me sad is this that all of us must leave behind loved ones who cannot understand that death is nothing more than another state of being together with the world and all its elements Jan 30 1972 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- XXVII o glorious world of mirrors and doors of radios and televisions of telephones and satellites that instead of bringing us together carry us away into a nether realm of fabrication] o world without perception world that has no depth world that is the evil artificial creation of a stifled mass riddle me no questions - who asks of you a favour is a foolish man i have asked enough o mankind you are the foul disease of vanity i have had enough of being puppet to the puppet master there is no puppet master there is only whale and tursiops nature there is no puppet master there is only creation there is no puppet master there is only the void only the universe of being being what reason is there for our being what knowledge gained by mass stupidity what reasons begot by vanity like now i stand transfixed before the grandeur of a mediocrity the radio blurts out music i hardly understand (art is making money what happened to art) that books become the essence of escape even now as i drink the wine my head revolves through reels of film that hardly seem the puppet i've become the intellect speaks nothing wears hidden masks and false acknowledgement for fear being branded an heretic by the world that plays at being god (no - the inquisition isn't over yet just gone underground grown more subtle uses tv now radio mass communication freedom to transform eventually it kills us all) i'd like to scream that all I know is only what i see i'd like to tell the world that everything that is considered a necessity is hardly that at all that everything vital is ludicrous everything is stupid totally irrelevant it is almost ten o'clock at night 22:00 Hrs and that i have sat here in this tomb for almost thirteen hours watching television reading books and listening to the radio and that i am not content and the reason being that the life we lead is automated that there is no reason for continuing except perhaps the hope that one day nature forms another bond and rids us of this blight called genus homo sapien Feb 3 1972 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- XXVIII I awake at three a.m. feeling you beside me gentle rose that tortures me with love and perfect bliss I awake at three a.m. still alone and frozen like a corpse raising questions loving dreams as once was life o lady come to me with flower petals falling like your gown at evening come to me like a dream that forms the perfect bridge between my life and yours that is my curse in memory that is my curse in knowing you so still so near yet further than the furthest reaches of my universe further than the furthest voice of god to touch me not and yet to be within so deep entwined that i again will be as once i was o fleeting angel in a mortal shape how distant now your eyes do penetrate my life how restless now you make the one who was content to be alone cast adrift on waves of foam yet now the dream the angelic features of your face has penetrated my whole life the eyes i search the eyes in vain for one acknowledgement eyes that are so deep the darkness does not penetrate so often near so often far woman lovely child of rose you tempt me so that half child-like and insecure i fall like the baptist before my Salome tasting death before the taste of life. Feb 4 1972 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- XXIX Running through the fog that splits apart to lead us to the riverbank we were overjoyed - no cocoon around us spun - we were free at last if only for a while and to be certain the quite moments moments of solitude and of awareness moments of words unspoken glimpses caught meanings known did not cease they were partly that which made our lives immortal chill october night Lady you cast a spell which whenever you are there immortal child of innocence (for nothing that you do is wrong) I fall apart beneath the stifled weight of centuries and with you to hold me feel secure again. Feb 5 1972 -- for Marion Todd --------------------------------------------------------------------------- XXX fragment from an uncompleted The old man speaks: "It takes a billion billion cells to make one tree, and you don't call that life? The roar of the wind, the violence of the waves, the magnificent dawn, the magnitude of the heavens, and you say they are all a nuisance to the solidarity of mankind, his progress? No, I have lived too long to know... (The old man paused a while, letting the silence of the evening seep deep through his aged bones.) You have to know hell before you can find, or even hope to glimpse the vast beauty of a heaven. You are still young, and have much life ahead of you; you have never had to suffer... oh, certainly, you have had your share of torments, griefs, but compared to the great suffering, those are a child's emotions running wild. One minute you quarrel, then the next you are the most valiant of friends... that is good, it is a way to test your bonds... but the great suffering, that of which I speak is so vastly different, it is not a game anymore, but yet, like the child's games, it is a test. A test of nature's. And unlike when you are a child, the stakes are very high, you either survive or parish...and unless you have arrived from the depths of this, you do not yet know how to live." (There was a long silence. The old man looked long across the vast Aegean to the outer island, savouring the galvanized experience of the sun reflected on the blue viridian water.) The son speaks, finally: "That may all be very well, papa, but the times have changed. You money to survive. You need power to get people to listen... and for power, money speaks the loudest. It's a hard fact...I love this country too, I was raised here, it is my heritage as much as it was yours, but I have a responsibility to my country, my fellow human beings. One cannot live in the past any longer. One does not till the land with one's bare hands. We have tractors now, and tractors need fuel; the cities need fuel; power, papa, power. And this land can supply that power in abundance." (The old man looked about him. The fragrance of the wild flowers in the wind, sweet scented with the perfume of the earth. He could hear the forest breathe, the sea create a swell and then subside, as if god were breathing there. The sky...each living thing. He could hear this, and it became a part of him, and he a part of it. He slowly raised his head taking a deep vibrant breath and closed his eyes letting the sun come warm across his face.) "I suppose," He said slowly in an almost defeated whisper. "You are right in your way. I don't know. Perhaps my ways are outmoded, perhaps it does not matter anymore, the bees, the birds, the flowers, the forest, the sea, the animals; perhaps that will all be replaced with syn...how do you call it? Syn... "Synthetics, papa." "Yes, synthetics. Perhaps that is what they will use to replace the land, and nature. Even God!" (And with this he whispered as if it was a secret to be kept.) "But I was raised on this land, and my father before me, and his father before that, and through much hardship and toil and work, it has become a part of me, and I am certain if you had stayed here, where you belong, it would have become part of you also. But that is all no more... the city is your home now...the city...the metropolis" (gesturing with his hand, as if that word evoked images of Satan himself.) "that is your home now. The Metropolis!" (His eyes now cast into the distance.) "I have been to the city. I have tasted it's false fruits. But that was long ago...before you were born... long ago...I can't remember...it was cold, alien....impersonal...and there was so much noise!" (Suddenly changing his tone of voice.) "Tell me, my son, how can you ever find your way around there? How is it possible to get from one end of the city to the other without losing your way? -- Here, if you want to journey somewhere, you can see your destination. You can see the mountains, if you want to journey there; you can see the islands, if the islands are your destination. And the forest, if that obscures your way, you have the stars to guide you.. Can you see the stars in your city? -- In the city you can so easily get lost. Everything is the same. Everything is gray, dull and drab. Lifeless. But here, here one can never become lost. One can never become confused. Life is not hectic as it is there. Life is calm and solid. Here one can be certain of the next day, and the day after that. One has the sky above and the earth below. One knows one's rightful place: under God!" (Raising his finger and pointing to the sky.) "But in your city, what have you there? You have nothing but drab gray walls. You do not see the sky, nor the stars; you do not even see the mountain, nor the sea; or what you have of water is black with tar and thick with oil. Do you call that beauty? Do you call that life? -- If your mother were alive..." "Papa." "No. Do not interrupt your father. I may be an old man, but I am still a man. If you call me a fool, then have at least enough respect to do so in silence. And what about your mother's resting place? When you come with all your wonderful machines: your trucks and bulldozers; your cranes and tractors, will you tear her body from the earth also? No...this land as long as I am alive will never be raped by your machines. Whatever minerals there are beneath this ground they were put there by God for the land, not for your monstrosities. Go now. Let an old man rest. I will have no more of this." (The old man picked up his cane, and limping, walked toward the sunset and the glimmer on the sea.) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- XXXI the man who bled was i when errors came my way to inner/outer realm i searched the empty stairs for living souls that burn as much as i there was no one but ultimately i was glad to be alone far and near to search the silence and converse with god and emptiness i searched the nature of my fears what error was the error that was brought to me? to be alone? to return when return could only be despair? i bleed it is enough and to suffer in silence until the realm commits itself even now confused i sing alone deserted even by myself who needs me most... Feb 8 1972 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- XXXII how far back must we go to separate the living from the dead? how far back to separate what was imaginary from the true experience of life? and if the dream has need to tempt you most how far does one go to make it real? i don't know the answers even if my life were there to do with as i please even if i had control all would be avast through void where burning daggers carve the way through memory and pain through temptation and through abstinence so what is left to do except wait the true beginning of my life? so what is left to be but what has passed you by? Feb 9 1972 -- revised 28 Dec 1993 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- XXXIII The scent of the sea brings me here -- disquieted and so severe that sunlight's vibrant dagger never comes too soon to soothe me or to torture to smother me in rays that melts the body like a woman's sexuality The crystal wind bathes me in an opulence of such harmony that universal doesn't cover it An opiate upon my mind capitulated to the burning of an ancient rite And reinstated finally like a haggard carpenter near the omnipotence of God. 29 April - 12 May 1972 -- revised 28 Dec 1993 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- XXXIV There are some men some, who can love a woman as another worships god There are some men who build mountains just to be able to mutilate themselves with shadows of greatness There are some men who are even able to come together understanding scripture conversing directly with God Some men build themselves down just to be able to live a little some to cry There are others too, picking up the pieces that break in desperate years trying just as desperately to die whole again... 15 May 1972 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here end the shorter poems from Bloodletting. Copyright (c) 1972/1993 by Klaus J. Gerken Published by Ygdrasil Press http://users.synapse.net/~kgerken kgerken@synapse.net alt.centipede