

   LADIES

   by

   Klaus J. Gerken

   I

   All my lovely ladies
      Have deserted me
   Left me like a savior
      Hung upon a tree.

   II

   But no I am no savior
      And the ladies were not free
   I paid my dues in suffering
      Upon a wretched sea.

   III

   A sea of blood and murder
      A sea of hope and fear
   They left me so deserted  
      I shed no single tear.

   IV

   The poison and the ivy
      The blood upon the vine
   With arms stretched to the dying
      I had no sense of time.

   V

   No voices to assault me
      I cannot hear a word
   But then of course I'm lying
      The truth is too absurd.

   VI

   No love and no disaster
      No waiting in the rain
   These ladies in the window
      Have only brought me pain.

   VII

   I look away and hunger
      I fast upon my loss
   My ladies have deserted me
      And now there's only frost.

   VIII

   I hope they manifest themselves
      And pray for my appeal
   The sentence that I've set myself
      To make this pain more real.

   IX

   They brought me what I did not have
      They took it all away
   They haunted me with mysteries
      Tormented night with day.

   X

   No savior I have ever been
      No truce is my repose
   The ladies have all vanished
      They let me get too close.

   XI

   The rain beats on my window now
      As falls a dismal mood
   To murder me, what will you now
      I starve, you bring no food.

   XII

   So desperate the day repeats
      A tortured circumstance
   As time resumes its banishment
      I dance alone, I dance

   XIII

   Upon the corpses of my youth
      Upon the hand that guides
   Me past my haunted prison cell
      And asks me not to hide.

   XIV

   O ladies tell me one true thing
      That does not turn a lie
   Where is love and what is it
      Where to find it - where might I?

   XV

   Neither did they speak to me
      Nor gave a single sign
   Is there a symbol I should know 
      Or just a ruined rhyme?

   XVI

   I could not master their ideals
      My life just fell apart
   How can I love if love is lost
      And O my broken heart!

   XVII

   You humbled me with distance
      You humbled me with love
   You humbled me with silence
      Like the lord our god above.

   XVIII

   No word is like a screaming
      Murderous debate
   I loved their tender bodies
      But they just made me wait.

   XIX

   I am alone and wonder
      (I stare across the sea
   of buildings town asunder)
      Can ever I be free?

   XX

   Free from pain and anger
      Free to live my life
   Without this interference
      Without this deafening strife?

   XXI

   Like caves where no one wanders
      Where bats reclaim the day
   A labyrinth unsightly
      My life is just that way.

   XXII

   Deeper into darkness
      Into the bowels of earth
   I find myself acclaiming
      Death before the birth.

   XXIII

   I watched you O so often
      By day and candle light
   Your deathly violation
      Obsessive in its might.

   XXIV

   You laughed and dance demurely
      You lived among your own
   Your pleasures, Sappho's surely
      With nothing to atone.

   XXV

   I only was a poet
      Little could I do
   But write a simple sonnet
      To your blue eyes untrue

   XXVI

   The storm was raging somewhere
      The brightness of the sun
   Was only the beginning
      When darkness came upon

   XXVII

   A blinding flash of lightning
      Blue and white - severe
   The heavier it bolted
      The heavier the fear

   XXVIII

   Of what the future brings us
      Of what we do not know
   O ladies in the window
      O let your beauty show

   XXIX

   One last time I'm pleading
      Pleading with you ghost
   Come and resurrect me
      Come and be my host.

   XXX

   Through time's bold referendum
      When music filled the air
   I surveyed all the loneliness
      In empty atmospheres.

   XXXI

   The couples holding back would run
      To darkened rooms away
   From what the crowd would bring to them
      Before the fall of day

   XXXII

   Where hope and the deluded night
      Wrought suffering ideals
   If no one cares - the story goes
      No one has to feel...

   XXXIV

   If I have chosen to live my life
      Within a prison cell
   Who should criticize my choice  
      When they do ne'er as well?

   XXXV

   These windows, walls I know so well
      These doors shut to the world
   I seek myself in signs of life 
      And find the spear is hurled.

   XXXVI

   These walls these walls that speak to me
      In silence and in tears
   Like Hamlet spoke to Holan when
      He shut out all the years.

   XXXVII

   Years that suffer years alone
      (The light beneath the door)
   Whoso enters to this realm
      Must pray to hope no more.

   XXXVIII

   And such I have conversed with you
      Ladies of the night
   Of all the things I could have done
      It gave me back my sight.

   XXXIX

   But what I saw was so obscene
      A stagnant revelry
   Made to form a copula
      With a stranger purity.

   XL

   I was repulsed, who would not be
      But fascinated too
   Like christians slaughtered in the ring
      It proved the legend true

   XLI

   Had Helen not been beautiful
      Hector could have lived
   And Paris would have kept his Troy
      And I might not write this.

   XLII

   No violence but pity reared
      Its head, I was aflame
   The sweat upon my ancient fear
      No tiger could be tamed.

   XLIII

   Its claws and teeth into me sank
      Deeper to the bone
   If I had wanted to escape
      I would have stayed at home.

   XLIV

   The scars I proudly wear today
      I do not hide away
   I suffer but I can't regret
      That torturous day.

   XLV

   I fly and fall like any man
      I have my dreams and hopes
   All I ask is only that
      I get a chance to cope.

   XLVI

   And the ladies who deserted me
      The past exploits and now
   I somehow wonder how much we
      Are pulled by time in two.

   XLVII

   And how much is it of our own
      Fault we really take
   To hold up to the scrutiny
      Of trouble that we make?

   XLVIII

   Like blasted winds we can't control
      Distracting every need
   We falter and we can't hold on
      To any former deed.

   XLIX

   The dagger and the politics
      Of sex and love and war
   Of money, usury in flames
      We always want for more.


   L

   Yet cannot gain enough of that
      In designated power -
   Like a god we torture everyone 
      Until the wine turns sour.

   LI

   The ladies taught me to reflect
      The world as it's today
   As broken ornaments are hung
      The shards are swept away.

   LII

   I miss them now they're gone from me
      I pass the house where they
   Had lived and loved and suffered in
      I want to kneel - to pray

   LIII

   Pray for beauty and for truth
      For passing chances lost
   I'd like to form a perfect bond
      Where tags presume no cost.

   LIV

   Goodbye my ladies O goodbye
      We'll never meet again
   I wanted only to regain
      A faded company.

   LV

   I wanted to confess to them
      If only they could hear
   I wanted only beauty truth
      For the dark sky to be clear.

   LVI

   A secret rite I did not need
      No coptic christian or
   Euleisian mystery that formed
      A cross upon your door.

   LVII

   I could have entered did not want
      So many times to bring
   The torment down upon their souls
      I needed loss to bring

   LVIII

   To bring whatever fear it wants
      Whatever fear it takes
   To circle all within the love
      Loss reiterates.

   LIX

   To vanquish to the nether realms
      Distant forms of thought
   Is more uxorious to me
      Than any kind of god.

   LX

   No one heretofore would deem
      That poets spoke a curse
   But that is what the fire brings
      In death's unequal thirst.

   LXI

   I've wandered many times among
      The round of altered states
   Each step I've always followed through
      And learned from my mistakes.

   LXII

   As dawn the dappled morning comes
      Plato's fulsome star
   Death is hiding in the green
      To show you who you are.

   LXIII

   The ladies in a vision came
      I almost got too near
   The flames around them violent
      Precluded any tear.

   LXIV

   Stoic where their cold pale lips
      Their plastic fingers froze
   Their touch was not what I'd expect
      Terror in me rose.

   LXV

   I knelt to them What do you want
      We want your blood They said
   And if I give you what you need
      Your soul your God is dead.

   LXVI

   Farther down the avenue
      I followed at a loss
   At what to do to lose these chains
      The road has not been crossed.

   LXVII

   I tried to raid my mystic eyes
      Toward the high domain
   Of multitudes surround in song 
      With nothing to regain.

   LXVIII

   No Beelzebub or Nostrafu
      Or even Satan choice
   Delivered could save face
      The devil makes what noise.

   LXIX

   The stratagem of paradise
      As H G Wells remarked
   There's no one there that's left alive
      With futures to embark.

   LXX

   But make a circle Make a square
      A triangle for hope
   For treachery and cunning are
      The only way they cope.

   LXXI

   These ladies they were all too real
      All a part of life
   Directed by the energy 
      That left me full of strife.

   LXXXII

   A bridge of ice A hurricane
      Something lost in fog
   No savior can be hero here
      The hero has been flogged.

   LXXIII

   O falseness that reverberates
      Through ancient lonely walls
   None but ghosts parade through these
      Monumental halls.

   LXXIV

   Empty now except for dust
      The sun is even cold
   I wonder where my ladies are
      Without them I grow old.

   LXXV

   I listen to the music soft
      The wine must soothe my brain
   I've lost what would have e'er become
      My only future gain.

   LXXVI

   Timeless tide of librium
      Soothe my tired nerves
   These ladies that have closed me out
      harbor stranger herbs.

   LXXVII

   I wrote a song, I sang a song
      I sang it through the night
   At three A.M. when sleep was mad
      Upon my darkening sight.

   LXXVIII

   I conjured visions, conjured mad
      At what I could not have
   As I was sinking out of touch
      No soul was left to save.

   LXXIX

   I sang this song - I played this tune
      Upon the old guitar
   The walls reverberated to 
      A spastic pulsing star.

   LXXX

   The tune was haunting beyond death
      Death's my savior now
   I sang and played and played and sang
      With sweat upon my brow.

   LXXXI

   "Oh where have all my ladies gone
      From the windows and the sun
   Those who burned a fever through
      My mind - I crawl! I run!.

   LXXXII

   And run to where? Away from what?
      It cannot be undone!
   In turn unmoved - I require
      Hope, will anyone.

   LXXXIII

   Give me what I'm searching for
      From the evil to the good
   Through each hot broken mystic door
      Dull decrepit martyrhood!

   LXXXIV

   No love but only anger here
      Believe the walls upon the dare
   Of time and holy testaments
      Oh where are all the good years - where?

   LXXXV

   I used to drink the atmosphere
      Of lovely wine that stirred the cask
   In darkened hellish caves 
      But now the hell I thought I lost.

   LXXXVI

   Became a mental rage
      Of passions driving into that
   I did not want - but could not lack -
      This passion, pain and cruelty
   My mind is tossed upon the sea.

   LXXXVII

   The sea I thought to conquer once
      These ladies so tempestuous
   They slaughtered me - they laughed
      Cruel and deep despair it was.

   LXXXVIII

   To no avail - is nothing left
      Is one so weak - the poison asp
   Is trained upon the common heart
      Now watch him make another mark.

   LXXXIX

   A mark that must abuse a cause
      The lady does not want to pause
   Yet who would have the right of way
      The one who lives by night or day?

   XC

   I did not think they would indict
      Me now - Oh ladies two by two
   Where have you gone - where are you now -
      In deep embrace with someone new?

   XCI

   But not with me -I failed the test
      I always tried to do my best
   For right or wrong - the walls came down
      When love undressed these ladies' gowns.

   XCII

   And love unconsummated goes
      Past the realm of all repose -
   Master what you cannot hold
      'The way that's lost cannot be told.'

   XCIII

   My glass of wine was empty then
      Like blood is gone from any man -
   The shadows that we truly are
      Does not relieve our failure.

   XCIV

   So onward, e'er through ill intent
      Disasters never circumvent -
   I meddled in the ancient arts
      And lost more heavy than at cards.

   XCV

   And now as any suicide
      Repulses what he cannot hide
   Climbs upon the pedestal
      And sees himself so very small.

   XCVI

   I cry in anger, cry in grief
      I steal just like a common thief
   Steal emotions, steal the bread 
      Away from those who are not dead.

   XCVII

   The suicide reclaims the right
      To be a shadow in the night -
   For those who see him fly away
      Can never see the dawn of day.

   XCVIII

   Oh ladies treat me gentle, bow 
      Not to anyone so cruel -
   I'd warm the flames in heart's disease
     If only you bring me ease...

   XCIX

   Oh ladies in the gentle night
      I've been with you so many times
   Come, offer me, not loss, but hope
      Of better life in which to cope.

   C

   Your laughter tore apart my head
      Exploring of a different stead -
   Cruel the flames then murdered him
      Upon his cross - for no clear sin.

   CI

   And like Orion in the sky
      Pursued by scorpions on high
   An arrow pierced his broken heart
      The tragedy of love's upstart.

      .   .   .   .   .   .   .

   CII

   I took a mixing bowl and formed
      a true exclusive test
   Of all the potions in the world
      To find the very best

   CIII

   The one perhaps that Tristram drank
      When on the cruel cruel sea
   When taking lovely Isolde back
      To her poor destiny

   CIV

   Or arrows of outrageous chance
      Or Ixion, his wheel -
   O ladies I can hard express
      What I must really feel.
 
   CV

   O ladies of this nether realm
      Such wonderful diversion
   I need you more than ever now
      My life is in reversion

   CVI

   The conquering of other forms
      Of other parts instead
   I've listened to the Siren's song
      And tried to move ahead

   CVII

   Ladies of the Nether Realm
      I've come to take my leave
   You've soothed my aching soul so much
      It withered like a leaf

   CVIII

   In spring-time when the universe 
      Explodes into a force
   Of starlight and insanity
      Beneath the shades of Mars

   CVIX

   And can there be indifference
      Can't we care at all -
   Absolve us of our circumstance
      That others so appall...

   CX

   The morning warps its diadem
      Sparkling in the sun
   From the window to the moon
      In the east the path is run

   CXI

   Where guns may flare and violence
      Reciprocates the cause
   Of difficult togetherness -
      Apart we all must pause

   CXII

   And reconsider time itself
      And moral flames anew
   What is right and what is wrong
      Or is it just the few

   CXIII

   Who masquerade around the room
      Among the ancient heights
   Of fancy that command...respect?
      From keepers of the rites

   CXIV
   
   The rites of what? You well might ask -
      The rites of time itself.
   For those who ask - the night redeems
      The violated twelve.
   
   CXV
   
   Twelve storms beneath the sky
      With one accredited
   The murderer - the catalyst
      Through whom the myth is fed.
   
   CXVI
   
   Well we know, o ladies calm
      And silent, far away
   The greatest storm is that which brings
      No warning in its way.
   
   CXVII
   
   Now warning, yet, illusive scent
      Of what was once divine -
   The empty room, the painted wall
      I never can call mine.
   
   CXVIII
   
   I pray to God - not quite divine -
      I believed no single word -
   The act itself inviolate
      The sound of truth unheard.
   
   CXIX
   
   Commanded, cut just like an act
      From centre stage away;
   And what is left is falsity
      That holds the crown at bay.
   
   CXX
   
   In gentle mutilation,
      Like wind upon a cane -
   No sugar for the ugly
      No rum for the insane.
   
   CXXI
   
   I view the desolation:
      The cities of the plain -
   o captivating ladies,
      I never knew your names!
   
   CXXII
   
   The wind is like a poison
      Cup o'erflows its brim
   The darkness and the seven seals
      Are lost beneath your sin.
   
   CXXIII
   
   The sin you could not understand
      The sin you thought was good,
   The sin that takes a rusty nail
      And augments flesh to wood.
   
   CXXIV
   
   As you have done o count less times
      Among the dirty streets
   Of love that were inviolate
      Among those in defeat.
   
   CXXV
   
   You painted murals on your walls
      You wore your hair like fire;
   And all the latest fads and styles
      Your beauty did require.
   
   CXXVI
   
   I, left alone, felt like a knife
      Digging into bone.
   The flesh, my own, I did degrade
      What reason destroyed Rome?
   
   CXXVII
   
   My world was like a city morgue
      Where naked bodies lie
   But do not move and do not love -
      O why must beauty die?
   
   CXXVIII
   
   I feel I am among these ones
      Caught where the soul is blind
   At the edge of sharpest time itself:
      The abyss of my mind.
   
   CXXIX
   
   No thought, no hope, but terror fills
      An empty cavity.
   A useless crown I have become,
      No brain and no body.
   
   CXXX
   
   Committed to a mental cell
      For those who cannot think
   I've lost you all and livelihood -
      I'm always on the brink.
   
   CXXXI
   
   The brink of suicide no less
      Than what it costs to be 
   Alone among the insane beasts
      Of would-be sanity.
   
   CXXXII
   
   A slave to circumstance I guess
      Is what I have become -
   O Ladies what are you to me?
      Alone! I am alone!
   
   CXXXIII
   
   A crowd as in a wonderland
      No one sees me stand -
   I lift my head and try to speak
      The twisting of my hand...
   
   CXXXIV
   
   If I'd a gun I know not what
      Violence would do -
   Life is just a road to death -
      What can it do for you?
   
   CXXXV
   
   No risen christ, no savior here,
      No Buddha's tranquility -
   No God to worship, no not one
      Who cares about our unity.
   
   CXXXVI
   
   The garden and the pit was one
      Symbol of the act.
   The act of love; the act of death
      We all have made that pack.
   
   CXXXVII
   
   The pact of Faustus or Werner
      The Pact of mad Don Juan -
   Deceit I see on every face -
      Let the dark moods come.
   
   CXXXVIII
   
   I write this as the passing rain
      Descends upon the earth.
   A paradox, if there is one -
      I drown while they give birth!
   
   CXXXIX
   
   I thought I could be spared all this
      But artists pay their due,
   Of how this dismal poem ends 
      I haven't got a clue.
   
   CXL
   
   I ramble on, I get nowhere
      -I get toward the end-
   And like the future we can't see
      What reed presumes to bend?
   
   CXLI
   
   And yes this star "the dawn of life"
      Will shed its light on all
   The lost souls in eternity
      Who cannot stop the fall.
   
   CXLII
   
   I bleed, I bleed, profusely -
      You never noticed that?
   The blind among the living
      Have eyes fit for a cat.
   
   CXLIII
   
   As God slay Christ
      Will ye slay me?
   Will anybody here deny
      There's no conspiracy?
   
   CXLIV
   
   In dream and myth it's easy to
      Compromise the host -
   But not in life - the traitor wind
      Will make you pay the cost.
   
   CXLV
   
   You sell your soul
      That's all there is...
   No devil makes a compromise
      Unless he plants the kiss...
   
   CXLVI
   
   So ladies of my desperation
      Can this be all there is?
   The violence and degradation -
      The betrays with a kiss?
   
   CXLVII
   
   O ladies how this bores me mad -
      I said that I was wrong.
   The poison has been taken up
      And carved within a song.
   
   CXLVIII
   
   A song we all must sing alone
      A mortified recap
   Of all the suffering endured
      Before the body snaps.
   
   CXLIX
   
   I guess I saw you Goddesses:
      I make up more than was.
   The war still rages in my heart
      The enemy has passed.
   
   CL
   
   The red red wine I could not drink
      Was like watered blood.
   But once I was a cannibal -
      Why drag it through the mud?
   
   CLI
   
   I cannot take this anymore;
      I feel to fall apart.
   O why must everyone I love
      Always break my heart?
   
   CLII
   
   O love me then and do not leave
      I cannot be alone.
   Alone I die - but cannot rest
      My heart is not a stone.
   
   CLIII
   
   Many times I wander
      Through the cold cruel night
   Demons always haunt me
      The stars exhume their light.
   
   CLIV
   
   What plenty is not given
      That is not taken away?
   O come my lovely ladies
      Bring another day.
   
   CLV
   
   What's lost, I can't reclaim it
      What's gone is gone, they say;
   And yet my evil ladies
      Death hold me at bay.
   
   CLVI
   
   I'm tired, I'm exhausted.
      I'm lost and I'm alone.
   I'm drowning like a sailor
      On a raft of broken stone.
   
   CLVII
   
   Sharks tear me asunder;
      Now there's nothing left.
   Ladies of the plunder
      You are not bereft.
   
   CLVIII
   
   The tide stems from the living
      The dying formulate -
   The better part of honor-
      The stillness of debate.
   
   CLIX
   
   This song can never matter -
      This song can never form
   A perfect consolation
      Among the standard norm.
   
   CLX
   
   So give me leave to wander
      Among the living dead;
   Those who would be lovers
      With nails upon the bed.
   
   CLXI
   
   So adieu my ladies
      I'll not see you again.
   The pleasure of your memory
      Must be all that I retain.
   
   *   *   *
   
   CLXII
   
   Perhaps the future shadows
      Will stake for us a claim:
   This mythical illusion
      Will never quell the pain.
   
   
   Copyright (c) 1983 Klaus J. Gerken
   
   Published by:
   Ygdrasil Press
   Web Page: http://www.synapse.net/~kgerken
   Email: kgerken@synapse.net
   Newsgroup: alt.centipede

   
   
