THE BREAKING OF DESIRE By Klaus J. Gerken I One thing I know for certain: Love is not a tragedy. Neither bedsheets blood and roses Press to form a composite; An orderly arrangement of a certitude, An offering of incense sandalwood Or Thyme. Love can never be a servitude Frozen into time. The poet masters his emotions, But only to predict his own demise. He stands upon the threshing floor, Disturbing neither universe Nor fashion's twisted rhyme. The poet searches love through loneliness, He cannot give yet only give. The poet has but only one clear light to give. An insight why this tragedy Is not a tragedy, but something more of Pantomime, in which these lovers May engage. For may it not have been That Hamlet loved Ophelia More than she loved him? He loathed the act of compromise, Forcing her to act With garlands strewn into the air. They formed a perfect pact. She found her compromise in God And he had poison to tame a Vengeful heart. It's hard. The sun sheds hazy Blasts of wind Among these lovers who perform Their tricks like clowns and masks and Shards of glass upon their broken walk. And wine and tears and stains of hope (These lovers breed despairs to cope). And I, I ramble on like rock Decaying imperceptibly Through age upon protracted age Obligatory in its rage, What lovers call eternity. Eternity, I see default, I see What must be thought through heart And twisted out of shape. Through heart prepared as rose has bled upon the snow. A virgin snow of rare and soft, And vespers echoed through a loft Of moldy history designed Not to replace the heart But to prepare the mind. For truth's incertitude I find: Allowed is nothing. Nothing that is not engraved in Culture's ritual or pain Of thorns and water nails and cross. The sword is ancient. Beaten steel, and burns like lead, And mercury: A fool's Caress, a Traitor's kiss, And love is not the fallen star We thought it was. Alone at night the poet weeps. Reclaims the seed and pushes back A frightened child into the nether-realms (Sole limbo this...). Too out of reach to be insane; Not living to reality, Not notice something is A blight That shatters through the night. He looks to Hamlet, Casanova or Adonis for a sign. A flash or glint or apple sigh. What's the secret? What's the lie? Alchemy or formulae? Tristram sang and o I guess, Abelard. So I have found A truth in this: A glint of vision In the eye. A glint of vision! What a lie! I learn to cope By understanding that unknown Peripherals exist, And that the flavour of each grain of sand Serves us like a heathen moon In worship. Full design of Crystallized amazement. But it's not confined to this. Nothing is confined. Restricted, Yes, but not confined. But lovers neither know or care. Not blind, but, well, I guess a fair But sanguine attitude, Tolerated, only, but larger Fallen back on life Daily dreaming through the strife Ever real to those who know (If they really only knew). Come up like a prince in arms: Galahad or Gawain alarmed. Poison's such a solid thing. Interweaves a wedding ring. Through all time But not through time, Passions play a dark design. Wait! I have not lost this knack. Sometimes starved but through the years Love's constancy abounds. Yes, and that is why it falls, The sword of Damocles these lovers share Knowing naught of Hades where All these shattered loves repair. Furnish me with something bright. Burn a candle for the lost Segregated fools who lust After what is not their own. Leave them to their own despair, Holy holy hot in prayer, Like a troop of empty monks Hiding from their own disgust. Failure written on each mask, Painted wretchedly grotesque, Casting glances at the wall As if something would be there To elaborate. I dare The fates. I tear apart What I repair. I hold no hope. I am not fair. I who vanish in thin air. Doubt upon doubt. A penny tossed into the air. (I cannot come to terms with her!) I notice in the moon a smirk, A raging blast admonishes, A spiral of intrinsic terror Rends the heart into a song Of coral, razor edged, sublime, Dry and subterfugal. Wet! Oh Diogenes you fool! Earth and water, fire, air, Dance around the monoliths, Eat the Devil's soul and dare Each element collapse. Three full days! You understand! Tristram drank, and Tristram drank What he should never have had touched. Given to a cruel defense, Passion has its recompense. So tread softly poet Through this jungle's undergrowth. Mark each dagger that prefers A mystery: ` Rites of passage, Isis, Spring. Hear the swan his death wish sing, And be prepared to fall away With the passion of that day. (Love springs quickly, vanishes With a devastating loneliness). And try to understand its feel, (The wind that lifts the phoenix free Is still the wind that builds your chain To capture you in a release Of energy). So like a thief You seal a glance. A freezing night, A splinter through your heart seems fine. What do lovers mind? Inconvenience is all a part Of affairs that touch a broken heart. II Touch stone. Touch the blackest stone That has fallen from the sky. Touch sky. Touch the deepest part of What you know You do not know. Touch what must be love. Accept the vision Through a tunnel offering Acceptance, Trust and all of this Security Vanquished lovers Need to have. Fall apart and Come together. Yet O like the cruelest weather, Salvage sun and Salvage spring. Salvage freedom Through a ring. Yet to love And chose to love, Dying with each breath one takes, That is where the silence breaks. Small things. Things that are not quite By accident. Knowing flavours and design Like those stars Lost in a dimension So incomprehensible Lovers never think to quill The dangling thread. They continue pulling Past their prime. Lovers are so "out of time". Devious in their deception. Tunnel vision. Panthers of the heart Tear the mind apart. Tear asunder everything. Water into ice Fire, air, Red and yellow Blue, Blue the sky and Hot and clear. Poet, there's no need To fear. Fate commands what Will become, Will create a Beat of drum. A surge of blood to brain, To nirvana. Svava. Svava. OM. Lock and key, And heart and sword, And touch Sweet sandalwood. Ah, cruel this world, All ice and flame. All such incredibility To tame... the breaking of desire. III Heart of hearts that is not heart But mind instead We fall apart A brief release from servitude A brief co-mingling of desire A brief portent! You liar! I find we hide too much from self But find we love the mask A bit a further bit like veil Of curtain drawn a sampling Of that fire draws us near And nearer till we are consumed A portent lovely innocence Born as we are born again A phoenix rising from the flame I wonder can we ever tame It? Tame it hard so we can master What it takes for us to make the brink Of what might be disaster But is mended when we claim Love's own retribution...This we gain With love's acceptance Love that does not fail to please Mutual understanding ease Perhaps the suffering that thin entails Ratifies a private need That brings us into contact with Such marvelous sublimity And here it touches dreams untold Journeys through the realm of gold Touching glories few can hold Few can understand at that Dante wrote a composite Drama of unearthly woe Such a monument he bore Upon his shoulders evermore Breeding love through world divine Searching God's unholy mind For a social ecstasy And Adonis I regret Sleeps tonight in his own bed Softly step among the clouds Softly step where love unfolds Softly step where'er you go Gentle is the flame that burns Warming that for which we burn O my mind my mind hast thou Suffered in love's afterglow Thou hast found love withering In the heat of summer drought Yet in nature always brought To the fore Renewed at last Love replenishes love's fast And such the harbinger of hope arrives A lonely walk destroys that rise No paradise collects the rain Of tears that always must remain The poet flings against the knife Torment must collect his life Torment that refuses love Wedged between love's bloody ax And life's fantastic chopping block The sun is hot I want to scream My mind is like a splintered beam Others do not feel as i Others do not want to die Die is Paris in the rain That is how I view this pain The poet finds this hard Words of ill design the poet walks the line There is nothing easy here Torn apart... despair... "Why must this transpire?" The poet walks on fire His heart sinks when she looks The other way She cares, but he's a dreamer still Rams his head against the wall (Insecurity's his fall) Each mistake he sees, each rejection Read into what should not be The poet's crazy acts the fool Doesn't want to play a "game" Wants a solid kind of love Suffers silently alone Dares the world "O cast the fatal stone!" I feel cold, so cold, so cold I can't form love into a mold Pathetic this a suicide Is what he craves each single night IV This is so confusing Once this once that Once ecstasy once cut The poet tastes his blood He know's he's got to die A holy revelry A sacrifice his heart Cut from him alive Beating hot with steam POET WHAT'S THIS MEAN? Trail of his demise Desperate his eyes Believing his own lies Blood pounds on his brain Can he be insane Is his love in vain? Devious at that The poet sets a trap To snare his own species No love can appease Sunup to sundown The poet wears his crown Tarnished then torn down Too intense his thought She cannot believe He can be this deep Deep into this limbo Dancing he will go Upon a burning woe Slowly out of time The poet's age is sad (Times are not that bad) Who knows he can't believe Who has he deceived Just himself he bleeds Wounded he proceeds Further in despair How can this have happened The poet's last complaint Dies a certain death "I am so confused" he cries "I am so confused!" the blight Of retribution creeps upon His shoulders like a weight Each poem must investigate Each poem tears away the skin Slowly slowly killing him The poet shuts himself away Is his life beyond control So it seems beyond control Frightened he upsets the pull Of forces that would underscore What he wants from love and life - Poet this is wrong! but right It feels so right it can't be wrong. Love is dying in a song... V This is not a sacrifice This is all a pack of lies VI This is not a story easily told A poet in love who shoots himself Murders the very art of his soul Who committed himself to a terrible thing Who fell in love with a woman who was Younger than he and fragile as glass And lost in the jungle committed himself To breaking a seven year sort-of-parole He made up his mind... But to carry the thought Of changing the future is terribly hard He stumbles and stumbles on icicle rocks But what did he think? That all life was easy? That he would not suffer? That hoping would carry Him through the shadow and into the light? He's paying the consequences - suffers today Suffers the future and suffers the past Suffers each losing and suffers each fast Suffers each step this eternity lasts Suffers commitment for dreams that are pure Which must turn solid for him to be sure Of each little striving, each step to love, He takes with a failure to mitigate death. It strangles his senses, refuses throughout Whatever his feelings, to water his drought To renew his passion - his passion it burns Consuming whatever of hope it can earn - "Why am I feeling this shattered design? It devastates all that I thought once was mine." ` Sanity vanity life redefined Could something have happened What forces combine To produce this reaction To make him so blind She's blond and she's slim She's beautiful - kind Intelligent, full of a Life giving force Vivacious - o god This poet is twisted Entangled ensnared This poet has conquered Himself unawares. So good to talk to her Of what? Philosophy, Psychology Tan and life and History - Poetry and So much more The words just flow with So much ease - The poet's broken spirit Is appeased. But there's a darker side of things Too much so - to get too close - too soon Could mean the end She fights herself and those old things Called doubts and fears And wants (what do we ever want?) Her freedom - "I'll do only What I please" "Others tell me that I'm not But they are wrong I AM INDEPENDENT Don't depend on anyone" She walked away "Don't get on my black list..." The poet knew that then She needed more security Than she would ever shut away Believing herself free While chained Andromeda Sits plaintively alone In her own broken home This may seem so cruel How can this be love Analyzing a relationship But the poet knows the score He's been through this before He himself has fear and doubt He himself needs to be loved. Following wild arguments A wind at night upon cruel seas A desperate evasion The nucleus evaporates Given over to a principle Violence So down through Cavernous expenditures To break each rue Accept each dare IS IT FAIR? A mood is followed by regret - Regret? Regret not anything - Scared? Scared to death Almost like to run away - Hide into a corner of my life That is not tarnished by this strife A frightened animated life Which crumbles like a Pantheon Beneath the cruel unyielding sun o God Then why go on? The cloud of my despair has not been lifted It tears into my soul and renders Each hour of life a full decay - The cause is love, my spirits should be lifted Into high heaven - yet my mind still ponders This decay - no joy is ever brought this way - The object of my love is much more rare and precious Than any kind of gold and silver, spices From the ease - My love has wrought me this obsession To pine away from such a crisis That augers nothing for my wanting A part of all that is clear bliss She holds within her brave undoubting Mind - and that is my unhappiness. Is there access to my heart Broken by the bitter part Of love's clear accolade? But is it love's clear accolade That twists a lover on the rack Of desperation! What is this that holds him back From love's conception? He forms a wall among his needs and hesitates... As wind bends reeds The poet bends...then snaps. No servitude in this dimension. Servitude - incomprehension DEATH This is his suspension! Suspended from a rope not knotted The poet grinds his soul apart Climbing up toward the summit Of his own unstable heart Stubborn like a bull all bloodied Charging headstrong into death He climbs into love's cruel arena Already frightened...out of breath He stands suspended in a limbo Crowds surround him with a noise Great and mighty...unapproving Naked he is lost alone His indiscretions, doubts, surrenders His own life to her own whim. Always disappointment Broken heart Disrespect for self's own Harbinger Deflected offering Always fist fights in the mind Beat yourself with so much blindness Can't continue like this You would ruin present comfort For what's eating you alive Gnawing at your very nature Nails into your thigh Thoughts with such a shifting nature Cannot be too kind Why this torture poet? Why this battle with yourself? She will not return your favour She has others in her ken You who drown - you are the stranger Onto others - onto self Why not tell her, poet, tell her She is kind to the extremes But she tortures with those means Does she torture? - Poet you do! You must torture to survive - You are heavy water poet She is air and light You are sleep and dark and moody She's a rainbow of delight Life to you is a struggle poet Youth's left you behind She embodies life and laughter Life's before her shining kind You must take with nothing offered Working to a hard effect She is strewn with gentle flowers Scented by what love collects You have let your youth go wasted And declaimed how time has flown She assimilates each nature Learning what she has not known With the sun upon your zenith Her's is in the eastern sky Is this love you suffer poet Your antidote to misery? If you gather flowers poet Leave the loveliest behind You have had love's finer glory Her's will still arrive. Let me go up to a solitary spot Somewhere near a raging sea Offering wisdom to me Guiding me through life's despot Life that now confuses me When love interjects it's cause This is fast without a pause Deliver me of this inconstancy I find a quiet arbour where I meditate in solitude Upon this flood - insecure Forms and violations here Within my servitude To her who's made me this unsure This troubled mind This imbecility that torments me Racked and torn and shaken Pulled apart by two Divergent attitudes Why can't I be happy Doing what I want? Torn between love and love A new or prior commitment You try to ask yourself too much (Poet you are out of touch) Your head is spinning spinning Damn it! She's beyond this game You're not thinking - Damn the pain! All this love has been in vain - What has this pretending gained? You always want what you can't have You always make things worse You're a goddamned fool A jester with no laughter left Drained emotionally and bereft Of any kind of sanity You're a damned disgrace How can you be in love with anyone You want to, and you should Commit your little suicide No one will regret your passing You have nothing left in life Damn it poet cut your wrists Beat yourself with your own fists. My mind cannot communicate I'm scared of what I say of late. I've got this problem I'm in love with you How do I tell you I am so afraid of losing you I am so afraid you will not want me anymore I am so afraid I've got this problem With myself I cannot communicate I've been alone so long I would love to be with you I see you and I want you I cannot stay away I think you are repulsed by me And I am just a fool I want to say I love you I want to shout I LOVE YOU Instead I sputter and I mumble Base stupidities Thoughts depressed of the silly Life I lead You must think me crazy You must think me mad I would let my life collapse If I could taste your breath After that I'd suffer I long for my own death What is this that makes me so Solemn and alone I cannot express my thoughts I fail As simple then as that What is left before I die? VII One single rose Does not decompose The truth or the lie For which we must vie An agon of sorts A difficult sport The rumours advance The losers link hands If we must be cruel Let's not play the fool If love has been lost We venture the cost A rock does not float Upon a mean moat Surrounding this session That ends in repression The violin plays A lonely relay The audience cries For want of a lie A solo performance Must be the cognomen A secret's that's shared With those who don't care The lonely acceptance Of failure conception Has not comprehension In what we define As lovers who only End up looking holy Through desperate needing Absolve their own crimes I don't think I care To confront the dare Each day that slips past Forms a heavier cast The relationship done How can we go on Even with doors unlocked Each path has been blocked Even with the sky falling Around me I'm stalling The flames in my heart Pull me now apart I love and I hate I fear the debate When once in the open Is there any hope then Sometime I must wonder How fate pulls us under With loss of our reason When we need a clear mind Yet love doesn't venture To pull us together - It sets us apart With two broken hearts Come love don't waver Love is no saviour I fall to my knees I beg love to please But love courts disaster For all we are after Like chasing the sun When the day has been done. VIII Windows to each separation The heather collides with the sun The horizon forms prayers of sunset While lovers return to the one Who taught them like waves on the ocean To rise and to fall with the tide I pity these exiles in limbo Who've written but got no reply She came like the spring to the meadow A bouquet of dew on the vine A scent of perfection that lingered Far longer than this poet's rhyme So you who have thought of conception Must rip away mask upon mask I pity these lovers in exile Who can never be up to the task If no man can be just an island Each lie that we suffer is real As loneliness mounts each solution We're frightened of what is revealed I have no complete revelation Of what must be done in this case These lover's just exile each other And suffer for what's no disgrace I can't comprehend so much beauty Revealed to a common design I prayed to each god in high heaven To let me in her shade recline But gods have a habit ignoring What mortals desire out of life So leave all these lovers - their exile Refuses to conquer their strife So if you must close all these windows Do so only for a very brief time Replenish the spend dissolution That has in your heart been confined Then open to radiant sunshine The world is not all made of stone With joy in our hears and forgiveness Let these exiles return to their homes. IX How will we know This afterglow That graces love Holds us above A troubled mind A broken heart So please be kind Love rages blind- ly e're we part. Once we've begun It's like the sun Warms to a point Then comes undone With clouds and rain Each day's the same What is the use For this abuse We chose to use? "I can't go on" Too often said With each decline Our veils are shed Revealing further Veils therein How can we ever Hope to win Such love grows thin. Each day that falls Beyond love's halls Through which we hope That we might cope With all our ills And all our frills Completely lost We pay the cost Within this frost. Like shadows we Are hardly free But also must Adjust to that Which hope collects In each aspect Of love renewed Let us be true However new... X The distance that separates us Is neither your fault nor mine It signals the passing of time And signifies younger days lost At least in my own dismal past When I should have tried but refused Whether through fear of abuse Or fear of my own emotions To break with a certain design That made life a miserable time And now like a fool I see you A saviour to what I've been though I'm sorry if I looked the fool A jack-ass can never look cool. XI What did I hope to accomplish? A grand design? A tragedy? With building blocks strewn on the floor? I tried to build castles of gold Yet never once sanctioned the mold And laid no foundation at all. No wonder the thing fell apart From the start I was troubled in mind Was it really an affair of the heart? I left all my senses behind Lost in an ocean of dream I reached for an infinity Not knowing how far I could go (I'm sorry that I hurt you so) I grope through each day with the hope The future would somehow resolve For me what I could not resolve. XII And it is not resolved for me XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Let this afternoon of glory be Her happiness and my sad misery... XIII What did I do? Betrayed myself. How? Believing I was God. When? When I fell in love. Why? Because I could not live. And through betrayal gained the love I could not have in life but death. I took two wooden planks and formed A cross: that was my own catharsis - At first I nailed my feet thereon (blood of crimson soaks the wood) Then my left hand - splintered bone - Now who's there to help my cause? They feed me vinegar - of course they do - And sling abuse - my heart drains slow; I dying I have found my goal Which love has forced me to confront - And through confession, scored this point: Death is love's solution. NO! Absolution. Maybe. Yes. Time leads Past a certain stage, and love Refuses to accept a calm sincerity That I can't hold - hold on to - this Despair's a crucifixion whichon I repair The error of my living, somewhere else, I fear. XIV This is not a hope This is dread despair Now become destructive Tell he poet tell her Don't kill yourself for this Tristram drank a potion He could not resist You have no such potion You suffer more for bliss Could death be so much greater Than sun that warms the spring Do not lose the meaning Of this state you're in Tell her poet tell her Even love grows thin... XV Like a beggar I climb through your window Needing ablution for love Lonely I kneel in your service Candle light shines from above Our love is consumed in the shadows The scent of your body is strong I shiver to think of the morning With words of despair on my tongue My love is the alter of service I sacrifice all I can give The breeze of conception will take me And scatter my words e're they live With no one to guide me, I falter My rose has no beauty but thorns O help me to see through the shadows My future looks pale and forlorn No compromise can solve this problem A total commitment is all That can be accepted in duty From lovers who survive the fall But something is terribly wrong here If love is one-sided deal Words spoken in haste spell disaster And no one can lodge an appeal I'm frightened of love like a swallow Is frightened of eagles that soar The future collects desperation And I cannot speak anymore I struggle against my true feelings For which no defense has been lodged I struggle against a disaster I cannot so easily dodge So this love remains in the shadows Shrouded by unknown ideals The lover dies from his commitment To silence...that hardly seems real So burn for his wanting a candle And cradle his paradise lost We all must be needed by someone While others just die in the frost. XVI Why do we have to hate each other Just because we are in love? * * * I'll be just a footnote in her life And she a major text in mine. XVII I would like to tell you a story Of these lonesome men courting despair Driving their demons before them With scars that no time will repair They live in a smoky destruction Their minds in a tangled up web Who drink up their brandy and wager Their indifference away with each bet You ask how they came to this living Hell that they dubbed paradise Irony raised on their shoulders Like so much discarded advise When love formed a scar on their ego They rejected the good with the bad These lonesome men plead to the silence To offer what they never had A toss of the dice they've collected Each woman they hold is a threat With blood on their manhood exacting The ransom of thorns on each bed Their future looks bleak so they promise Themselves that there shall be no cure For shutting away all their feelings They thought would make martyrdom pure Each drop of this blood they've collected In a vessel of mud and of clay Performing the rites of spring passing Whenever the dust blows away So this is the story deflected From one broken stone to the sky So listen who have heart to listen DO not let the message go by. XVIII She said she loved me Now I don't know why I came That she was thinking of me To her love was just a game Fraught with desire I didn't know what love could be Consumed by fire She was quick to capture me O friends now listen Don't let love float you away On a river of danger Which you're sure to regret someday She said she loved me Now I don't know why I came I believed her blindly But to her love was just a game. XX Just observed A nightly nebulosity Entrenched Minotaurs of universal Silence stalking Each avowal Unified in Labyrinths of Vast evasions Yearly oblations Unfold. XXI I'm getting to the stage where words won't do Where all I want to say is : I love you I say: Hello, and silence clouds my tongue My awkwardness destroys me when the day is done I dream of what my life would be with you In loneliness I die for want of you You make me feel so good when you're around And yet my love for you makes me a clown I guess my awkwardness makes me a bore My failure to respond locks every door I run into a wall I've never seen before My own emotions burn me to the very core. XXII I know I had my chances I guess I fell apart I'm a fool, I know it I'm ruled by mind, not heart... My heart says, O I love you My mind counts years apart I wish that you could offer Me another start... XXIII I thought when I was twenty one I was so very smart But now at thirty seven My mind's a foolish haven. LOVE Tell her poet tell her To suffer, you're a fool Only on rejection Should you say that love is cruel But then there's hope forever Even in despair Tell her poet tell her To suffer isn't fair. Repair... Repair yourself poet, repair yourself - you thought you wanted thought you needed her, you never had her poet - repair yourself poet repair... Away from this! and kill this damned despair... MY LOVE IS... My love is blue infinity And apple blossoms in the spring, And gentle lilac offering A rare sublimity: My love is sandalwood with hint Of rare and subtle patchouli As if reflected in a dream So calm and soothing and serene. I venture soft to capture her With hint of roses...roses strewn Upon the air she walks upon. My love is brightness, air and sun, A gentle morning's miracle, Flawless, fleeting, captured, gone... MY LOVE IS... My love is like a fast red doe Fleeting like the brilliant sun When the day is won. My love is hazel, I am oak She grows young as I grow old (I fear a tragic tale unfold) I meet her with a fleeting glance She gives no one a second chance Beneath the stars, forlorn, I dance. My love is beauty, I the beast As I am chained to her, she's free I worship her: she does not worship me. I write a song she will not hear. She is Leda, I the swan Who must sing her loss before the dawn. Coda Perchance she hears this song I sing: It would be a marvel thing, Before I die of this grieving. SONG You're playing with my emotions I don't know where I stand Your beauty's so delectable I wish you could understand I'd love to be your lover I'd love to be your friend Every time I see you I feel it is the end My mind is in a cauldron Of nervous energy I'm losing weight like crazy O lady set me free I want you like no other I refuse to give up hope I die each single moment I don't know how I cope There are clouds on the horizon I don't know what will come I want to see the future And you the rising sun... Don't play with my emotions I'm fragile as a glass You easily could shatter By refusing me too fast. WHAT IS POETRY... What is poetry, she asked. Your first reaction was to say: Thought fear and wonder, as A proof of this fine miracle...you. So much so, that I am jealous Of your beauty's ripe red rose... And because of that I cannot hope To kiss or even sleep with you. Besides, I've nothing you could want. And he who has nothing must remain alone To sing his song... Of course you didn't say it. The silence was a veil of death... And the song, she never knew that, it was hers. *** You are heavy water poet She is air and light You are deep and dark and moody She's a rainbow of delight Life to you is a struggle poet Youth left you behind She ennobles love and laughter Life's before her, smiling, kind You must take, with nothing offered Working to a hard effect She is strewn with gentle flowers Scented by what love collects You have let your youth go wasted And declaimed, how time has flown! She assimilates each nature Learning what she has not known With the sun upon your zenith Her's is in the eastern sky Is this love you suffer, poet Your antidote to misery? If you gather flowers poet Leave the loveliest alive You have had love's finer glory Her's will still arrive. *** There are swallows playfully uplifting my design My poetry is not my comfort You have been And much as I love you I cannot tell you so directly You say that you discuss my words With the lover you most want to own I share your most intimate thoughts So young you are and beautiful I took this time off from work Because I could not study for a competition Because I could not think so near to you Now within this park Beneath this ancient oak Chirping swallows in my hair I study Finally I study You. *** Do you not understand me? Do you think that I might also play the game like any other man that you have twisted into shape like burlap in the harbour of your life? You are not a lighthouse You are Skylla and Charybdis You are much too smooth for me to understand You are like a snowflake in an oven I am searching for ----- I am useless in your arms I am the story that no one reads Because the clump of trees is gone And your sweetness poisons everything. *** I should not be writing these poems I love you more than hope Will ever allow in the mainstream of life *** This is very complex I'm not young anymore And yesterday's conception of beauty's ripeness Displaces my repose My composure missing I am like a garbage bag Covering your geraniums I am like a triple somersault Gone wrong My body out of sync My mind replenished only by a longing I cannot refuse For after all Am I not a poet Am I not outside this window Struggling to get in This is very complex I reach into a sacrament Searching for a clue You offer only makeup I crawl in mud for you I shift myself uneasy A juggler with no balls I come and offer nothing I refuse the alibi I resurrect no saviour Into your arms uneasy Soothe me with your kissed Soothe me till I die This sunset is not perfect I cannot answer why My voice collapses - panics I'm cold beneath your skin Let no man be this lonely By waiting I have sinned I wanted you like thunder Frightened I renege An ounce of flesh is perfect For those who've never bled Give o give me something Stone upon a stone The wilderness confuses And I am left alone A child upon an ocean It cannot learn to swim I need you like no other Where do I begin These winds are cruel and hollow My sails are torn and frayed Your body's like an eagle That kills me with its claws Your voice is like a siren's I wish that I could hear Instead I die like Elpinor Paralyzed by fear Instead I die the fool again Drunk on your magnificence Each hope a sloppy tear *** You are like a shooting star Too bright for me to capture Too fleeting for my plodding mind To comprehend I am the astronomer And you a magnificent unfathomable Nova. *** I have crossed this river often It's never been so rough Why do I hesitate Why is this so taught? *** I pretended not to suffer I fell apart inside You damned me with your beauty Now where do I hide? *** A leap into the future? A leap into the past? A leap into the river That swallows you at last! THE END All poems Copyright (c) 1986, 1993 Klaus J. Gerken Published by: Ygdrasil Press Web Page: http://users.synapse.net/~kgerken Email: kgerken@synapse.net Newsgroup: alt.centipede