DIRINGE Poems 1973 - 1974 By Klaus J. Gerken 1. to d parton to rattle this little or that little or any little universe we must be certain of what we have and what we are and how we fit and things of consequence like yoga wood and dust to be sure nothing matters and the quest of something greater than ourselves is pure folly think of this the film we run and universes shatter are the only image that a fleeting time will understand nothing else 30 dec 73 2. so you say that we exist like three dead horses and a bunch of dried up pine right you are the wilderness speaks in terms of wind and nothing matters save the silence of a forever and even that is not enough even that is not to understand the curse of this improbability... 30 dec 73 3. I fell in a shitty mood tonight Haven't felt like this in three or four months Nothing that matters matters anyway I value my life I speak and stand alone I offer incense To a book And shovel words into dirty snow And havoc strewn meanings defaulting Pyro film We think a lot Things look up Only when they're down 30 dec 73 4. to be constantly reminded and constantly to fail is shit - let us fall and let us rise but waiting is shit of all and singings is the crap that brings us down why are all of us so down the world is down and things look up up up o forget it - let's have a cup of tea and sing to meanings lost and broken glass on broken streets and startle people with our finger tips 30 dec 73 5. "coming down again coming down again where are all my friends coming down again" rolling stones with everybody roaring drunk and me sober reading thompson's Vegas I stammer to repent And raise my cup of meat At sheltered virgins Shattering the peace Of holy war.... Let us pray For peyote and holy water From the grave of genesis khan Or anyone who Happens to be called a saviors Of his race we spend seven days regretting being born and fourteen regretting hold on things have a way of working out when in a slump do what slump people do get out when found our recall the why they why will inevitably zombie you into some kind of frenzy state of immobility with highway robbery tattooed on your skin and black teeth punched full of gorilla holes and mouthwash apes and apple pie and three saviours who took a bus and landed somewhere in the west at a river and a chinaman coming out of the bushes with a christian broad getting conversed to the pox and yup things are looking up 6. you've played the record once too often made a movie sand a song laughed a bit and cried things like these are what make life the little things love and hate a firefly you meet the sky and see the stars each of this is each of that another record now that strains the mind you drink no more but wish somehow you did the mood is something to escape and wine it seems makes the time pass easier harder to express and even though you understand you don't things recall a why and friends fill in the ends but to forget is easy? No. remembering is harder yet. 7. you read the books of heavy loneliness but shut the meaning out why not one is offered only dreams and only hope that shattered the next day harsh and cruel so you pick up the pieces fitting them here or there until the dream again is ripe for shattering all the time while to disbelievers death waits cruel with laughter and life pushes you toward its goal oh sure you say this death it gets us all but somehow deep inside your heart you've expected more than what was offered by this life you chose deep inside your heart you thought of paradise... 30 dec 73 8. there always seems to be something something when you can't go on falling down and getting up this is all there is you know falling down and getting up was there something more or did you expect a bowl of rice? 30 dec 73 9. once we finally depart as in a movie where things gather at an end those of us alone will know the thought as it separates to go through different doors - you see a movie has no feelings to shut them out is not reality to shut them out is not awareness come the experience we gather others cannot gather we bring them them 30 dec 73 10. "so long Marianne it's time that we began to laugh and cry and laugh about it all gain" - l cohen full we come but separate we are mankind does not live by rules but by forces hardly he will understand controlling things is in him things he will not control for how can you control that which you fail to understand I control nothing Not even myself I am pushed and shoved into situation I react to them I am never ready I am ever ready I come and go I yearn for better things I laugh and sometimes (not lately) I cry I find myself constantly amazed At how many tears I have 30 dec 73 11. you evolve a secret code that only panthers know and create a visual of self deception that finishes the world you drive five elephants up a wall and drink too much you let the mind roam free because you want to get to know yourself better you read a book and tear out every eleventh page believe in elves and capture mountain lions and butterflies that sing with virgin voices you are a raven once you fly you are a sorceress black-eyed beauty of the desert you are woman you are man things are not against you you carry no daggers freedom has no meaning for you because freedom is too restrictive you sacrifice your body to the sun but the sun is not in heat the seasons offer you their birth and you eat the first-born of every newlywed your bed is a flaming pit and your mouth the cavern that leads to aquert you drive fast cars and real eliot at the grave of Edward g robinson things have a way of working out you say and leave a will to emptiness to all who have conquered mount everest in the spring ah the test of courage you have made while sinking into silence you vanish in the breeze and capture attis in your gaze... yes things are looking up and spring is coming after all. 30 dec 73 12. soldier's epitaph patriotism fills my soul and I want to kill in the name of everything that moves on higher ground I take a dagger First And mutilate myself Say a prayer And am off to murder and create A standing peace Slowly I am killed And without my self kites fly wild and are Torn and frayed And the little children left Without testicles and arms Soldiers give them candy I am prayed to And am given every opportunity To once again return And stir up strife My tears are rain Descending in the night So no one will notice I too am offered life in death I too am one of many Who was blind 30 dec 73 13. Soft, the rain explores The broken shards of empires Frozen in the red earth - I guess these monuments they Form a meaning of sorts. These shadows that we are... 22 Sep 73 14. The mood I find is difficult... The rain-drenched streets - The cloudy sky - A feeling that presages loneliness - Closed by walls That answer not... 22 Sep 73 15. I am separate from myself - I am Broken by a vanquished Love - I am lost in the realm Of lost beings - I am Shadowed by a being Caught in a web Without repair - I am Not who I am - I am not me, I am... 22 Sep 73 16. I call, but find no answer in the darkness that reverses fact - like shadows seeming plausible - in the light. 22 Sep 73 17. When broken, bound and gagged and suffering the silence of conviction - Life is rough; and rougher still the path we choose to bend a little or a lot - O how marvelous to be alive! to see this wondrous thing, and be a part of it! 25 Sep 73 18. i out some paper in the slot thinking how wondrous it wd be to sing the sometimes spring and butterflies that stroke the violet of misty mountains in the rain torrential we find placid amazement beneath the feet of pentameters / and so regain confidence in washing dishes below mount blanc in the fog shrouding dense insanities at vampire bats in Tennessee / first before we have not met the right to congress the vertical and offer sweet cakes and goats to GOD Poseidon and Cavafi in some obscure villa in Athens (re: Durrell's TUNC) and finally to cap events we bleed all of us - not cendars on- ly and all of us have weapons that's reality. 26 Nov 73 19. cerulean blue touched with indigo at dawn / nothing that we own anymore is here forgotten chrome yellow fades and infidelities abound / there is and the meaning IS obscure forgotten save the faith we have in sacrificing ourselves in shadow of an unknown universe forgotten think man. there isn't an awful lot of time that we have left. a few thousand years really isn't all that much. even the dinosaurs had a better life. at least they didn't mess it up. ? / regaining truth is hard but harder still, a faith to guide us on the path away from wrong. (yet - to know the right one must first know wrong.) - true it is. now that we have "ate the apple" so to say, but to understand to UNDERSTAND each other frightfully insane / as if we have forgotten even that we are the same. 26 Nov 73 20. words for multitudes of meanings offering a rose ripe for the vase / yet bleeding hand must bleed no more we all wear gloves now-a-days frightfully insecure a few knew / but they as many things are gone words - these words what does the terror of them mean? what does the soft harshness of them rectify? nothing - even less than that. 'cause there is no need silence never is as frightening why not use the voice that truly is a voice? / why not offer silence as a blissful sign of hope - words thoughts - perhaps there is / you know there is canvas stands half empty but looks complete / who will understand? 26 Nov 73 21. much to anyone's surprise it does begin you know quarter load beneath the weight of things that no one thinks about - it's still done / only no one gives a fart either way the busses run from here to contra town and no one gets off a foot before their stop (too lazy 'guess to walk a bit. came home today with a load of junk that wasn't worth the effort though i guess that things haven't really changed and the Suez canal is closed to foreign troops and English trolley cars /things are looking up i say five flooded oceans look better than five which are dead and dry and deserts with rat infested moorings for stranded automobiles /listen we've just been informed that perhaps there are things unknown so now that we begin we go repeating formulae and personal reports of weal-thing wind swept lanes guess there isn't any use for gathering too many things these days look outside and catch a "black hole" somewhere near Siberia 27 Nov 73 22. slowly now, slow we accept what we must to be the quiet that to be revered music must be slow chant and candlelight flicker in the universe slowly then, slow do we now accept the challenge and the hope? do we now accept ourselves as we are meant to be? do we take the refuge understanding more than before? or are we blind with hope like christian brethrens who breathe a quick redemption in the smoke of jean d'arc and opium shrouded lips of artaud bleeding black death in the Aztec circle of death? o come then you in slow processions chanting perfect rhythms to the sacred gland and darkest pit we have been so far and are so near we can grasp the vision almost radiant with the light hearing ourselves hear! 29/11/73 23. they have taken what matters taken our hope the army has deserted us and left us only dope our dreams are moccasins and revelry our dance is black with opium and visions to be free things are left to us we trod on things undone multitudes they offer us nothing but redun- dency - wasted lovers slowly strange in an avenue of dreams and deserts where mingle only light and shadows neath worn out buildings gray and lonely strangers left to fend outside alone. 29/11/73 24. Ottawa evening drunk on wine restaurants where people congregate who have nothing else to do - Raving mad the offerings of ablution to the sky "To have seen infinity!" one shouts in silence and the mescaline shifts the sights to an explosive windows sill where everything is nothing nothing everything - a piece of paper, - just that. nothing less for nothing more. "Come a song" ye sing, sing: Ottawa evening half recalled remembering a glass of wine, a woman's touch, a loss and didn't "give a damn" - Friends together offering a toast - organizing dreams - because their sleep of drugs had offered none. The laughter, joy, the tears, angels bleeding in hypocrisy - while cars screaming down the line - back streets and police. nothing very radical. "And those poor bastards even admired us, the life we led." hardly so when they found out taking life for all there is. 4 dec 73 25. o masters of surrealism, dada and the art of making coffee cups + plastic spoons leaking through voices of glass walls! we salute you! give us hope! we have gotten fat from theatricals and are very much at odds as you predicted by wearing winter shawls! "I have eaten motor cars and tasted salt extracts with a touch of bitterness - and i i i have gotten drunk on wine and rum and gin and beer mescaline and acid, waterspouts and hamburgers. - ways that cross the cup of coffee without conversation recorded on a secret napkin finally drowned with tears of hashish coloured smoke. And we have gotten enough of it eh? (nudge the side) eh? all of this - broken bottles by the side eh? all of this is it robbery or is it life? 4 dec 73 26. You throw a thought into the air and mutter something not profound. you've become a stranger and all the fine books of philosophy you've read can't or won't console you now You've come face to face with a terrible reality You're alone Nothing but a coffee cup and a pack of cards (solitaire never was your game) you sit alone at your cedar desk or on the sofa watching tv or reading or you play a song upon your scratched guitar but a strings 's broke and you haven't a pitch fork to exchange reality for life and life for a positive illusion of a hope well, nothing seems to matter let that console you nothing seems to matter all those unfinished portraits that you've done strangers everyone... 16 Jan 74 27. Greek moods and a little wine (memories that pass) Look, I tell myself - the wheel of turning passes in the turning of infinity (nothing we can do) the hell we prove's within ourselves - the life we lead, a great illusion nothing's safe, and nothing's dull, greek moods, music, wine. sadness, hate and love - fear, uncertainty and chance - all these things are part of life - to shut them out - to shut them out - so long ago, remembering - the drunken nights, the cherished nights drenched in starry rain, and friends, the cherished friends remembering... 18 jan 74 28. Quite right: we find ourselves within ourselves counting the minutes, hours days - working, begging, falling, getting up again, falling again, destitute - we bum a cigarette, drink too much (or not at all) we pray, curse, spit. murder, then repent, - are forgiven - smite, love, hate rich or poor. sing, dance, count... count what? time, money, loss... candles, rows of them... 18 jan 74 29. Empty nights that pass infinity with nothing left to do but swat some flies screaming bloody murder - drink of coffee cold and black - and as they speak of freedom you fall short of it ... silent Sadness touches you, and the past storms with the power of a memory upon your stifled youth. - o well, you say, and shrug your shoulders to the certitude of a future generation without hope. 18 jan 74 30. Harlequin No longer do we see white snow escaping looks of steel. We see knives, exes and religion. We see ice and insecurity. No longer do we prepare our own tightrope - It is secured for us by experts... Perhaps that is why we are so afraid to die. 5 dec 73 31. What reason is this that has befallen you? You stand there at the edge of nowhere contemplating the calm serenity of day. Long ago I have done this also and fallen into a stupor over how the scene might fit my words. But alas, it never did... Yet even without words it gave me cause to be a poet. Why? Listen... Do you not hear? Hear what? The silence of the void. The infinite, that which is our creed. Once you understand, there is no need for words... 21 oct 73 32. A shelter against storm and rain in wintertime searched I, and found the haven... the eternal. O word, how you have deceived yourself! He who searches little finds the most. I searched for a hostel and found my destination. 25 nov 73 33. Incense burns deep - sandalwood cedar, pine. Civilization turns upon its axis. Poets prose inadequate things more meaningful thereof. Outside ice forms on roads and squirrels fight among themselves for peanuts and sunflower seeds strews=n about the yard. Trees perform a pantomime against the backdrop of the sky. Powder puffs of clouds create themselves anew. (Who says they have no identity?) A Picasso hangs upon the wall - flowers in a vase - the yellow blinds the eyes. Glowing like the auvers' sun. A chess board in the corner. Pieces lie asunder. Books of sullen moods are piled up on the shelves. A canvas propped against the wall. Empty now. The expectation of the new. Old and dusty manuscripts lie dormant in the closet. Memories of long ago. Thoughts consumed in confidence. An old and broken down typewriter near the bed. Its use has been to serve a use. Pens, words. Incense. Shadows on the snow. Whence we came is whence we go. 22 jan 74 34. Hush, not a word spoken Let the fervent waters come and whisper their gypsy moods - We are cast asunder born beneath a dying star in Hades. Listen now, black crow for black moods. Restless; doors open, close. Smoke disperses in the sky - sunlight sings Van Goth. Quite by accident we find... Come; shellfish bask upon the shore - Lovers tears their minds apart - The universe incomprehends itself - (Nothing we can understand - To try, what use? we fail -) Hush; let the fervent waters come and carry us away. Freedom only comes who are so far away. 26 jan 74 35. Sunday rain. January. Bazulukas on the stereo. Empty moods stretched beyond the breaking point. Nothing matters. But nothing. Some sketches of old forgotten faces torn apart beneath their age. Landscapes painted blue gray. Soft voices cry their fervent argosy. Nothing matters. Nothing. Events pass without meaning. Voices speak and no one hears. No one hears themselves. Stale jokes are tossed around. And laughter, dead laughter flourishes. O god the longing of my soul! The flood of pain! my Buddha! nothing matches expectation. Be brought to it, and brought into the refuge of life's outhouse. Wallop in the mess, and perhaps the perplexity of all will be a revelation. Somewhat. 27 jan 74 36. Whatever it means to be alone, I have not found it. Silence opens doors, they say, but never the right ones. Stairs are always steep and endless. The hand may move, to only find that words cannot be formed, and must be content with any new page to form the journal of a life. 27 jan 74 37. The conquering of things unconquerable: three dead and twisted trees out in the meadow. Mist obscures their ground. - One has a feeling they are ghosts, wandering aimlessly - How they cling to what is gone for them! 20 Feb 1974 -- 12:55pm 38. You walk down cold streets. Gray building greet you. You thank them for their company. A child lies broken somewhere but that is of no concern to you. The dead snow on the ground and drizzle in the air. You are cold, hungry for a glass of wine, a woman's touch... You look up. Gray buildings greet you. You thank them for their company... 20 Feb 74 -- 12:58pm 39. You who read these words might be embarrassed at their privacy... You who read these words might not care - That is bad. In both cases is it bad. One does not think too clear when one is embarrassed. And when one does not care - one has thought too much already. 20 feb 74 -- 1pm 40. There are shadows that are soft and personal like a mood by candle light - There are shadows that are insincere like a woman in a window late at night - There are shadows that are cold like the streetlamp near a bar. They say one drinks too much - or not at all. These shadows they are so much freer than we are... 20 feb 74 -- 1:03pm 41. Spring is cruel. A man can only wait so long - before he takes a dagger to himself. 20 feb 74 -- 1:05pm 42. But really things are not as bad as they appear - streets are full of people and the women soft and kind - warm food awaits you on your getting home and a good bed... soft and kind A tv set to furnace dreams and hold a separate reality. Everything. What is there we have not got? Yet we still complain. we still complain while children starve. 20 feb 74 -- 1:08pm 43. These may not be as many words as others have... or as eloquently said. I can only do my best... "A simple mind... a simple heart." or so they say. well, there's nothing simple here - a billion cells in constant flux. But the clear light, the clear light... do you understand? 20 feb 74 -- 1:06pm 44. Get out of it - you clots all of this is faked - even the universe is faked the weather is a poison to the kin but everything is faked nothing refuses and nothing accepts life is shadows shadow death even that great caretaker god is phony and wouldn't you know it even I... 27 feb 74 45. Whatever we forget like walls that shut out light and anger shuts out tears we hold on to something anything that brings us near the suicidal image of ourselves... for why? deep down we know that nothing is alright with who and what we are and this society. 27 feb 74 46. we ask ourselves again and again what we are doing here this world outlasting us at every turn we do such little things and think they make a mark... 27 feb 74 47. we knock upon a door no one answers we walk in there is no one there we walk out we feel good about the shadows and the emptiness of this intrusion... 9 march 74 48. it is many things we understand and many more we falter and fall upon - the mind is a vast conception the mind is vaster than the universe... 19 march 74 49. We sing winter we sing we sing summer fall and spring we sing - cursed be the slush that sloppily gets in our boots and wets our socks and makes our walking difficult blessed be the sun that fills our souls with giddiness and hope and makes us sing and makes us sing in ecstasy of the passing of the solitude that was the winter in our bones that parts old friends and brings dejection to our minds - but let us not forget how beautiful the life we have is, will be, has been - that nothing ever is the poison - that nothing ever calls for hemlock to be drunk because to live is the joyful magnitude of our existence we sing winter - cursing cold and snow - we sing praises for the warm evenings spent at desk in writing words or reading books the summer has no time for - we sing the beauty of the snow on trees and smoke from chimneys - we curse the noise of motorcars that dirty up the snow - we are sad at these developments that take the beauty of the natural away from us - we sing the spring - the beginning of this cycle of events - we sing spring - the buds on trees the warming of the days when we cast our coats off and the body lets the spirit soar and the south wind blows soothingly - love is in our bones we sing of old friends that we will meet again - of wine and conversation and we sing of new friends new frontiers they will share with us and we with them we sing of birds nesting robins singing - and we sing of a new beginning we sing of hope and summer dreams that never disappear we sing - o god and how we sing! 19 march 74 50. returning from whatever point we do not return - snow in march as we open ourselves to spring - those careless days where never much remains the same as anything that changes yet and let us find first of all a place to which we can return - a year ago? two? three? four? or is there nothing in the past worth going after? hardly do but we must look ahead to understand the newness of this hour - only... nothing ever can explain the meaning of the day - so what to do? pound these keys to understand? sure why not the meaning that we need to know confine us and we bleed. 21 march 74 51. There is soft music that is soft and sad - It brings back memories that carry with them pain and joy - memories of conversations with good friends - Yet when one is alone there are no friends there is no conversation there is no wine There are perhaps a few tears or regrets but what do these matter? Life refuses life - and the music burns like gin on a silent night - Softer yet, and softer yet the music drinks a concerted offering and you, you are cast aside... 27 march 74 (8:56pm) Cuxhaven, Germany 52. They say that one sacrifices nothing when being alone. Well, to hear the silence one magnifies the thought patterns of the mind until they become unbearable. - And that is where I am at today. A glass of beer before me - a half finished song written and some notes on the day. - Myself, I have done nothing, at least there is nothing that compels me to do anything. They offer me a cigarette and I do not smoke. I refuse and they are hurt. - But let us leave these things alone. There is a piano in the wilderness and someone is giving a lesson on how to guzzle beer. Someone is reciting a battle hymn to some obscure republic near the everglades. Someone else is rewriting the constitution and has joined a religious cult to be anonymous. - Then there are those who are alone - perhaps they are the least free. Perhaps they understand the least by trying to understand the most. - In any event they are alone. 27 march 74 (8:50pm) Cuxhaven, Germany 53. I had so many poems to write but I haven't written one... There are times and there are times... 27 march 74 (9:01pm) Cuxhaven, Germany 54. I looked across the wide expanse of ocean and though of absolutely nothing... One seems to understand everything when one notices that infinity is only a certain distance... 27 march 94 (9:03.5pm) Cuxhaven, Germany 55. These prayer beads stand between me and god - and as someone said... there are better things sometimes - and better things are to be regarded as good these prayer beads help me to belong to myself and to belong to someone else - that is also good. 27 march 74 (8:59pm) 56. Alone in a room / fearful too soon / there's nothing to do / save writing to you / - / And you know that I'm feeling / a touch of the blues / when time moves slowly / and thinking of you / - / Girl I know it's been long / and to write you this song / now that years pass away... / - / is no excuse / I simply refuse / to believe that you would / send me ein gruss / And time is the killer of souls of new years and old Marion don't you know there's nowhere to go - I wonder how you / cope with it all / You see how I feel / somewhere to kneel / - / But a prayer is nothing / save hemlock to drink / and hemlock is poison / - / oh lass mich in ruh / I've nothing to say / as time flies away / refr. 27 march 74 (8:45pm) Cuxhaven, Germany 57. A few things remind us of ourselves You read in the papers of murders and you cannot understand - You walk along the beach and feel the sand between you toes - It feels good and you feel free - but it is all an illusion because you feel free - You are alone and because of it, you feel lonely - You ask questions to which you invent answers - but they too are an illusion - You look into the shadow of the sun heavy on your wall - you hear soft sad music and are sad also - It feels good to be sad, you say It feels good to finally feel like something tangible. 4 april 74 (6:06pm) Cuxhaven, Germany 58. Turning off the music you become a witness of the hidden noises of this house You look around and see yourself mirrored in the shadows - You feel the warmth of your breathing upon your hand as you slowly, gropingly ask yourself how much of it you really comprehend... 4 april 74 Cuxhaven, Germany 59. Girls are gathering up dead leave outside in the yard You watch them because they are beautiful Birds are singing and there is a brisk eastern breeze You watch them there The girl They talk amongst themselves - They laugh How glad you are that they are there For without them the silence would hardly be endurable... 4 april 74 Cuxhaven, Germany 60. for Marion This empty room so quiet and severe untouched by lonely violence Why does no one care? You walk at night through empty streets and shadows / we fall beneath the intensity of things to come / we drink our wine and drink our rum / and leave the past behind because no matter how you might explain it / we'll never come to grips with it ** Building sand castles on the beach and then destroying them - that is how we find ourselves Because of everything we are we are nothing - and as nothing comes to nothing... It is an enigma this... I wish I had some opium. 8 april 74 Cuxhaven, Germany 61. When writing letter to friends one does not have always give a false address because the music only matters once the music stops and the traffic cop is locked up pat in jail So there is nothing left to do save sing and dance a jig or two And when in such a state of panic settle back, relax because a second never is as much as one might think a moment is - which makes no sense at all - but had to say it - so? Well, even Baudelaire had cats on a leash and Rimbaud followed what he thought were dreams... 8 april 74 Germany 62. One remembers certain things Where certain houses were or some faces that hardly ever change but in whatever way one is still a stranger in a stranger town. 9 april 74 Cuxhaven, Germany 63. You sit alone by the window staring out across the shingled rooftops and ancient oak trees rusted red that have seen more history than can be dreamt of - You've just gotten over a cold and blew it all by taking the sun for granted and sweating half to death - Well, you say, this table's made of wood and plastic - only other parasites in a world of parasites. 10 april 74 (2:20pm) Cuxhaven, Germany 64. 2 weeks drunk and you don't know where you are At first you thought you where a bubble floating in a vat of helium but that passed quickly one night while looking at a window and seeing two nude chicks do their stuff in view of everyone who had the eyes to see that they were waiting to be seen - so now you're resting after violent emotions and a face that didn't quite make it to the mirror - You're in Germany now, boy the dream said - Yes, in Germany now - better get another key. 10 april 74 ( 1/4 to 3pm) Cuxhaven, Germany 65. Right now I'm restless and I'm bored I hear voices but don't really know where they come from There is a cold wind blowing from the east through my open window - and outside perched in a tree there is a bird singing sweetly singing - silently alone. 10 april 74 (1/4 to 4pm) Duhnen, Germany 66. You come through shadows love you come to me You see my failings love and comfort me You speak of freedom love and stay by me I speak of courtship love yet flee from thee. 10 april 74 (10 to 4pm) Duhnen, Germany 67. I am like John the Baptist I've covered many miles Now broken old and lonely Women only smile... The stories that they tell me I've heard them all before Of love and truth and brotherhood And how they found the Lord So silently I wander Through the hollow night Filled with empty passion I see a darker light. 10 april 74 (1/4 to 5pm) Duhnen, Germany 68. You mount the stairs late at night half drunk you feel like singing but you refrain from fear of waking someone - You come to your door and fumble with the key - You hate that key - you hate that door - You hate everything that leads you to that room because you know that once you enter there is no escape - that once you enter the loneliness will break you and that the open window will pretend to be your only friend... 10 april 74 (5:07pm) Duhnen, Germany 69. The smoke curls above your head towards the sun It is a thin line between the trembling and the strong Listen, all of you who conquer me Listen and complain It is your voice that matters most quiet but severe It is your voice before the silence disappears... 10 april 74 (5:20pm) Duhnen, Germany 70. Are we really free? from window to window verfrachtet lost and shifted in the wind - Sure we sit in the sun and drink our beer from cans - Sure we laugh and sing AS for that matter, even cry - but when it comes to sitting in a room alone fearful of the universe and even people on the street - are we really free? or is it me? 5:30 April 1974 - Duhnen 71. Soft music pull the shades back and let the soft sun enter - smoke a cigarillo kid and cast the world aside - eat oranges write a lot of prose - nothing really matters kid except the overdose. 16 april 74 Duhnen, Germany 72. after a long journey and drinking cheap wine for three weeks one is always glad to get home with a bottle of good burgundy and good music to relax the soul we are not alone you know it is the wind that guides us from the east 25 april 1974 (11:10am) 73. Sipping warm beer and spilling most of it - God it's warm in here! 80 degrees no less. Watching tv and leafing through a nine hundred page edit of the Bhagavad-Gita - Yes, well remembering a lot of nothingness and trips with spinning head and trembling hands - addresses cram my mind of women I have never met - I'd like to meet them now... 28 april 74 (8:45pm) Ottawa, Canada 74. I pace up and down think about nothing bury myself in a piece of paper refuse to regain freedom refuse to hope refuse to understand anything sneeze refuse to sing refuse refuse refuse I pace up and down speak of chairs rosebuds and chains speak of ashtrays and refuse to listen to anyone listen to cars to radios to static noise I pace up and down I pace I reason with myself Mythical premonitions do not appear If they do I refuse to see them I regain my sanity and refuse my sanity refuse refuse refuse to be 8 may 74 -- 11pm 75. SIGNAL we tried to do something! not really we were too drunk - we did something through our drunkenness! not really we didn't speak we did something through our silence! not really we defied ourselves we tried to do something! yes we did what then? we tried to be ourselves how? through escape and how did you escape? by drinking too much and why did you drink too much? because we tried to do something - and why did you try to do something? we were bored bored with what? life and why were you bored with life? because we weren't dong anything but why weren't you doing anything? we were too drunk. 8 may 74 -- 11:10pm 76. I love the moods Cavafis holds before us so fearful in their demise that he enshrined them on the wind that stirs the dust in brothels where his loves await their god - I see the old man, looking at the world through rimless spectacles mastering everything he sees - mastering everything... everything except his rows of little lighted candles. 17 june 74 77. Drunk on good wine... how many poems have I started with those words? Countless I would guess Countless times I have dropped words upon the page without so much a thought as to their meanings when that nectar of the gods permeated every membrane in my body and my mind It has brought me down when I swore it off - never more - I shouted when the morning after such an easy drunk I was wracked in pain lying incapacitated on my bed praying for a remedy Now it's here again after swearing off the drink I've come home drunk and incoherent to myself and others - I'm lost I say - lost - no hope for me I'll go on, day by day getting drunk and writing silly little poems fit for no one but myself. 17 june 74 78. Vast ocean solitude replete with lonely island conquering the wind - you speak a lot of conquering these days - as if you had a point to prove - like others gulp down whiskey, or herd their women into bed - you speak of conquering - sure, you say, why not? besides it's better than speaking of failure. 4 jun 74 -- 10:30am 79. There are so many things to take notice of - so many things - we repeat ourselves endlessly and cast our sights into the mirror of infinity - we turn off yellow light bulbs encrusted with hot dust - we are only human someone says - we are only human, yes, but human to what end? 4 jun 74 -- 10am 80. And there at the intersection were six of us; two girls and four guys. - A man with a Nato Conference name tag on his lapel stood beside my and I asked him how his job was. "Fine," he said puzzled. And I continued, "How's your family?" "Fine." - and then, "Not easy for an old man like me." That was when the light changed and we parted ways. I headed for the cigar store on Elgin Street to get some cork screws for the wine bottles we couldn't open and he puzzled walked the other way home alone, I guess. 18 june 74 81. Do not go - Silence touches old wounds. And who of us needs old wounds to fill the time? You have eyes of black night and I find you, like the rain refreshing in a draught - You see now, that everything has reason, - ultimately we fail - we cannot possess each other. 18 june 74 82. MONDAY 17 JUNE 1974 We gathered together on the lawn by the National Art Centre where we had chicken for eating and good wine for drink - where we had music for the senses and conversation for the mind... Some of us spoke of freedom, while others spoke of captive hearts - Randy broke a bottle of white Mouton Cadet while lunging it against a wall trying to open it - Later we played chess and I told everyone the moves - Slowly we begin to understand each other. 18 June 74 83. Sun beats upon me as the wine soothes my body and sets the mind to reeling - we were happy then - laughing and singing without a single care - we were happy then finding ourselves in the loss of self... 18 june 74 84. So there was a large conference that day, and all the limousines were lined up in front of the hotels and we ran past them on our way to the liquor store - and I said, " why not crash the party?" - but there were too many guards and we we went back considering alternatives and drinking as good a wine as they would every have. 18 june 74 85. There are so many poems one wishes to write so many things to say - there are poison darts to cleanse and windows to ignite - there are meanings to be made clear and ashes to scatter all over the world... One is lost another does not regain a foothold on his situation - one is lost - another is cold, alone - one remembers - one forgets... 18 june 74 86. I have very few mysteries left - very few illusions that lead me on, - and they lead me on without regret, without joy - without emotion - nothing remains to me, the women smile - the women smile - It is their smile which offers falsehood in their pleasure... 17 june 74 87. It was how she came up the walk and I offered her a drink from the wine flask of I had and how she looked at me and smiled, and how I thought for a moment, for a fleeting moment it was time... 17 june 74 88. DAYS OF '70 There was lots of drinking and a lot of talk that meant hardly anything and was forgotten just as fast as the wine quenched our thirst - It was in these days and night though, in these days and nights that something was achieved through the nothing of our lives... 17 June 74 89. DAYS OF '71 It was the drunken nights that murdered us - the laughter and perhaps the emptiness all this could not fill... 17 June 74 90. DAYS OF '72 It was things slipping away from us things we thought would go on forever but alas, as the wind shifts and the tides go out - so it was with what we had... perhaps we abused the good times that we had too much. 17 June 74 91. DAYS OF '73 A time of rest, perhaps - a time to delve into the many unread books amassed over the years - and they were read, yes, they were read, with eagerness and hope that perhaps someday one might get another chance... 17 June 74 92. DAYS OF '74 It begins again... but men change - and change leads to disillusionment when living in the glory of one's past... of two roads which to take? 17 June 74 93. No, don't go yet - It is fact that erases meaning - and hope that raises wonder to a misused form of expectancy - we were lodged beneath a poem that weighed heavy on the wind no words just two intertwining bodies brushed with burning skin. 11 June 74 94. Right knowledge, what is that? a chair ajar producing abstract formations of a sheet of canvas? the poet waits and nothing happens - for what could happen? form is form and knowledge void. 11 June 74 95. I reach out to touch you in the darkness of this night - in this room somewhere on an unknown street. It is strange to find you lost among a liquid moon lost... How can I touch you when you are not there? 11 June 74 96. each day has a non-existing door we can open with eagerness toward the future how ignorant we are! 11 June 74 97. Let me drink the sun let me drink your body let me drink the universe o my lovely lady Stars are shining through the nigh cast in gentle ease lovely lady cold as ice how I love to freeze Let me drink the solitude let me drink your sex your beauty is your mystery your nature so complex so lovely lady come to me gentle like the wind you conquer all the innocents through religion or through sin 26 June 74 98. What am I doing here meeting the passing of the ages with a mouth full of cavities filled with silver in an age of affluence? playing a dark tuned guitar sitting on the edge of a creaking bed or reading books with exotic languages I know little of? What am I doing here out of line with myself and others? What is this poison dart I dip in alcohol to sterilize playing chess with other egos painting canvasses strained with tears and blood? What indeed am I doing here out of step and lost among the blackness and more blackness? What am I doing here without my german ancestry to lay claim to and to comfort me so far from the place where I was born from blood soaking clean sheets? What am I doing here then? Voices blurting out orders as they step on paramecium and eat the mangled fetuses of chickens?\Don't they think anything of murder? Don't they think one has a right to live? Don't they think one has a right to question why they wear their sharp-toothed grins between their legs for whore's and saints? I have seen to much to be of service to anyone who collects specimens I am a cripple in a crippled universe I am a fingerprint without identity I am in a country called Canada I am in a city, a building a room - I am sitting at a desk listening to strands of Mozart and Mussorgsky - I am lonely I am glad to be lonely I drink my wine and ask the simple question no one is allowed to ask what am I doing here? I don't know. 29 June 74 99. Edith Paif how you danced that night when the music took you and brought back the child you always were - how much that child in you must have suffered with the advance of womanhood - small and gentle lost in a world of vultures savouring the glory and defeat of fragile children - who of them really felt the music, the songs you offered them, wrought out of pain and joy - tears and laughter - who? None of them, poor deluded child, came to hear the songs - they came to experience the life, a life they made a scandal, a life they encouraged and then destroyed with false ideals and curiosity. *** Edith Paif you were alone and because of that thriving loneliness they murdered you because they wanted you as a saint - the fools didn't they themselves know it was they who were alone? 29 June 74 100. I am rather drunk tonight because I want to be and I have no opium - I have no wooden shoes and I have no magic formula to rid me of my emptiness - So let me be a drunkard, the perfect drunkard walking through the calloused night in perfect defeat - as woman wait, hair disheveled in dimly lit doorways offering the sin of retribution - I am rather drunk tonight if only for no reason - I have no reason to be doing this I have no reason to be doing anything. 29 June 74 101. I have cheated myself and you, I am not the master of the universe arguing like old priests over the condition of the moral equinox or society - I am only myself, you taught me that, I am only myself alone. 29 June 74 All Poems Copyright (c) 1974 Klaus J. Gerken Published by Ygdrasil Press 2002