SACRIFICE

by

Klaus J. Gerken

(1969)


I

Wander through the forest:
Sing through the echo of distant hazel trees
and listen; listen to the nightingales,
wondrous in exaltation.
Love me, and I too will sing.
Love me, and I too, will begin
to understand those untamed wilds
where the scent of lilac wafts
and the rustle of autumn leaves in the cool breeze
wakes in tones unheard before
to capture us; the passengers of solitude.

Jan 1969


II

Listen
they have come to renew their love again
Listen
they have come again to prove
that their master voice may also be controlled
and their tear concealed
They are lost inside the undoubting realm
of vast beauties - seldom
craving for something less.

Jan 1969


III


A sullen and abortive reformation
      haunts my dereliction
      in this nothingness
As my youth wore on
      my criteria lost the dry voice
      it had captured from without
      that wall of flesh.
As now - in this deranged
      parameter of my unwillingness
      I stand mute.
The sounds have all been stillborn
      to the depths of the depthless echo
      to scatter the illusionary battle-weary troops
      and liquidate the pain.

Has my mind been so insensitive
      that not one point of sharp desire
      has escaped between this
      helplessness and serfdom of regret?
Command I not the hemlock? See
      there it stands upon the table.
The mixture so venomous and easy.
      This - all that is left
      is to move the fevered hand
      and join the lips to parting.

Easy! can it truly be such a simple task?

Feb 1969


IV

My age
an imbecilic
fraction of adulations thought
coming from the wine.
The wine - that glass filled
to overflowing.
That blood - that redness.
The voice of your lips. - Come,
come and be with me tonight
as I cannot come to be with you.

Feb - March 1969


V

Your compulsion angered,
sentenced and repented;
implanted in the vows of
pernicious requisitory hope -
you forgave those shadows 
of the heart, without ever
lifting an eyelid or
biting the chilled anger
from your lips, - "But
it must be so, or else
the gifted stature of your birthright
will fail to keep that which
is so sacred in our isolated
understanding in our heart
of contemplative captivity." - Your words
my lovely huntress, - your words!
Has it ever occurred to you that
they are nothing but wantings? Nothing but
longings to become part of that
that other self which you can never hope
to be? - Ah, but whatever would
you be without the faded murmur
of your birthright? - It would be
precocious to suggest the taking
to be an unbound difficulty,
through each escape would seem to
become a life form; frozen
to either, and inseparable
from both influences. - Yet
what about the taking?
that monstrous ability to
become a priest of that season
within or without the mindchild
of our existence? - It was
always you who said, "The
procedure is not to be taken 
unless our fathers would care
to become the gods of our
conscience." - from this you
inferred the inability to
perform the insidious self-styled
act of substitution through a touch.
An inability to be transformed
from child to woman;
from mortal to goddess;
and I in truth could only become
the monk who stems the solitude
in devotion to your truth.
Ah, how you hated to be watched
by the eyes of my silence! - you
could never understand the realness
of that inglorious act! You
could never understand
the desire and the pain I felt
being the worshipper, not the lover.
"Come! come and release me!"
Would my deliriums
not have looked any better
had they been inspired
by any other means but your
dark-eyes mysteries? - Or would they
have unfolded at all times
in the same way? - Could you
have changed? - Or perhaps it was
I? - I who became the mute refrain
of my insensitive longing?
I who sang so proudly
the song which was created
for the voice of life, -
not for the voice of silence?

Could then our philosophy be such
as not to understand
our words, leaving them
to stream forth in disarranged torrents,
flowing past the defensive
acquisition of our names, before there
was any chance to comprehend
the prolonged torture of ourselves?
Why! Oh why must there be such
a dissipation in our glances?
Though we mean to speak we
keep our tones in the silence
of our need. Can we not speak?
Let us speak! Let us...

It is too late...
the sky has darkened
and the shadow of our false love
lies heavy in the age where we met.
Yet we knew the future,
but were in the past.
We knew the beginning
and the end... but we knew
not the present...
we knew not ourselves.

Feb - March 1969


VI

VIN D' OR

Wine of gold -
golden apples - red
and longing
on a dark winter's night.

No - our bodies
shall never be concealed from the walls.
Even the paintings shall not be ashamed.
Come - search the vast divide
of my love -
I can hide no more.

Wine of gold -
golden apples - red
and longings
on a dark winter's night.

Feb 27, 1969


VII

DEEP

It is the left over thought
      the random flash of memory
sailing the scattered sands of yesteryear.
It is the swiftness with which
      it has passed on -
processed and decomposed
through the ageless realm
      of bliss.

It is the gift of the heated conversation
     through which the truth becomes shrouded
     behind the misty dissonance
     of certain angelic semi-tones -
enclosing the ears in a deafness - through which
     awareness of time and space
      become something of a useless anchorage -
as the cycle is enveloped in a never ending
      dilemma of chaotic inactivity.

It is the demented love poem
      through which the wine
becomes the only salvation.
It becomes the tranquility
       of a religious isolation -
it become your saviour for the time being -
       you God for the excess of a year.

It is the song which you stumble on
       in a haze of inactivity.

It is the restaurant you visit
      when your friends do not wish to speak to you
            nor you them.
It is the quiet moment of deep despondency
       felt whenever THAT longing
              takes hold of you -
                    leaving you
      once again - in emptiness.

it is that fraction of your life
      lived alone
with no one to help
      or to speak the words
of your confinement.

It is the wine...
            the wine...

March 1 - 18, 1969



VIII

You carve out a piece of your heart
contemplating that cycle with her name -
You wish to offer it to her
in substitution for your pride -
If she accepts you may proceed -
if she rejects you may commit
       that fatal stroke.
Either way you will be lost
in the eternal phantasm of the skies
seeking Aphrodite and Latoma
upon the rugged mountain top of grief.

You! carrier of that bold disposition!
You! self made martyr of that love!
where are the credential of your plight?
Have you not the poem of your fright?
where do you hide it? tell me!
before that madness recalls
the disenchanted glory of your flight!
Tell me fast, before that fleeting 
moment deserts - leaving no refrain
to guide you to the empty cross.
      And even if you do
sink back into that eternal sleep -
      will there not be one
who will lend her voice to the cause
      of your muted disposition?

And still, if the words your mind desires
      cannot be brought forth -
speak the words the heart inspires.
Speak and rid yourself of those self-doubts
imposed upon the glory of your life.
Is it not enough to search the ageless works
      for the hidden failure they have left behind?
all to produce a poetic condition
      under which to hide?

Gerald de Nerval - his madness -
      will that be your inspiration?
The ending of one Chatterton -
      will that be the gift you place
            before yourself?
or will you let those acute dreams
      of past memories
lead your life into the Bacchanal real
      of distempered debauchery?

Come! Come! regret nothing
      if you have lived through it all!
There the profits of your illustration
      will become measureless!
Come! Come! look upon the mighty blaze
      of a million suns!
You cannot see them from the corner
      in which you dwell!
Come out and view the serene light
      of heaven's blitz!
Come! view the menstrual meteors -
      chart them in their course
through our turbulent atmosphere.
Come! let malevolence not overshadow
      the sorrow endured!
Come! come - open the exhausted heart
      and let the stream of life
      flow freely through the ether
of our polluted dissidence.
      Replenish that stream!
give new life to its incandescent breath!

It was in those legitimate dreams
      that our passionate distain -
      the cycle of our truth - was written.
You stood alone - in mortifying grace -
      asking... asking... asking
for something such as was never there
      for you to handle.
O blindness! and such a blindness of uncertainty!
The blindness of your bequeathed insignificance!
Release yourself! not the shadow! YOURLELF!
      Do not try to be a monument!
as they who have died early enough
      to become martyrs!
Hold yourself! long enough to be
      the dark equation
      to your soul -
short enough to be a divine sparrow
      parroting the grief of its intoxication.
Be the sacrificial lamb
      on the alter of her God!
Be the blood that floweth forth
      to cleanse her body -
      the virgin's grace
      of her destiny.
Be all of that - and many more
      such verified interrogations!
Leave your environment
      to pursue
the gravel road to the desert tombs!
Be the currier of Satan's
       prophetic lore!

Only when the possibility
       of your desired freedom arises
      leaving your heart to lean heavily
upon the breath of that insidious longing
      within your disenchanted mind -
                  come not to me.
Nor ever come to your Satan! for he
is also in the process
      of shedding that blazing tear
       of his unmet expectations.
Come to no one but yourself!
      NO ONE BUT YOURSELF!
for there is nothing that may be done
      to eliminate that potent situation
in the tears shed to redirect your bewildered soul
      upon that correct road.
         There is nothing!

Yet in false actuality your voice
      cannot hope to stem the crevice
            of her distance.
Yet think again - have you truly given her all
      that she would have desired of you?
Truly - have you listened to the voice
      that deprived you of coming forth
into the direct field of battle?

      Yet the desire of martyrdom
      lies heavy upon your brow!
Then go! join in the slaughter!
      Go and drink the blood!
       The cross awaits you.

March 1969


IX

PARTING

Hold me fast within your arms - Angel -
strong and cruel -
I will let your gleaming eyes beat down upon my body
to tear it from its past.

Bring to me that key - Angel -
old and rusted
to unlock the tempest in my heart
that mute congestion
sadly isolated from itself.

So drink!
Come and let me sleep through frozen dreams
intoxicated with your kisses!
Let me rest in my delirium!

I am of the talisman fallen
its porcelain body chipped
reported to be a missing tear.

O Angel! this languor is too harsh!
      this voice too heavy!
and those arms too strong!
They are terrible as your eyes!
O divine mistress to my God!

Soul and body thus depart
the wound awaits itself -
the pain of the kiss?
The infection
cleanse it with your flames
Golden Angel! with your flames!

March 1969


X

Return

To toss your essence, like a pebble, back into the sea
to cleanse your lungs
      and breathe the easy substance of the wind
to press those surging waves against your lips
there, in those fervent realities,
      dreamlike in a reinstated passion,
lies the resurrection of your birth
      given unto the beginning
of the beginning of the depths
      of the ocean's deepest call.

To be there, by the wish of the salt,
is to be in the vision of that longing unfulfilled 
To walk across those same cobblestone streets
      to touch the past, so much a reality
      yet also so much of the dream -
the sweet dream, of the lotus or the wine
To be there, as the gods have kept it for me...
      then ... the gods are timeless
and memories lie true to the vintage
      they become heavy until the honeyed scent
            must be let into the stream of our life
and the salt of tears become the ether of a dream
      the reality of a night
and the poem of a day...

This... the wish fulfilled
   is the promise of return...

April 8, 1969


XI

You whom I love as the sun sinks behind the vast horizon
You whom I love in warlike dreams and passing chance
You - have I not earned the right to touch the lines of your contour?

You whom I see of heaven borne
      unto the planets, constellations, stars -
My Aphrodite - goddess of love's stature!     

Yet for you - mortal words become so
      seemingly inadequate
and those of heaven
     so far removed
      without passion or touch.

Will then silence quenched the thirst of need?
Will the you - for whom this stands written -
will then you - goddess, mortal, woman,
sorceress, - only look upon these words,
not the hidden voice beneath?

Oh! if only your fingernails would touch the skin
      to search for them -
not deep - yet only far enough to see
      that there is life!

April 12, 1969


Copyright (c) 1969 Klaus J. Gerken