The Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht
Page 13
And spoke a sentence towards noon
Felt in the evening some joy again
Some peace was all he asked when night came down
Once waters flowed through him and animals
Vanished in him and he was never full
Whether he gobbled air or gobbled bulls
And now: feeble
Lupu Pick and Manke Pansche
Bitter were the words they uttered
Crooked were the ways they went
Seven long years long and thus were
Seven of their years spent.
Lupu Pick and Manke Pansche
White hair, faded skin
With his left, already dim, eye
Lupu Pick saw him and struck
Saying nothing, aiming surely
Him a blow across the neck.
Pansche understood in terror
Thick and hairy he withdrew
Crablike to the paddyfields
There thought up a thing or two.
And he came back carrying buckets
Full of wine and rice and meat
Which he rammed and which he poured
Down the enfeebled Lupu’s throat.
Lupu Pick, once he was sated
Drove him with a single look
Off into the wet dog-kennel
Such a brute was Lupu Pick.
Yes, he pinched the cheek (but which cheek
I forbear to disclose)
Of Manke Pansche’s wife and came then
Tottering to him in the trees.
Hoarsely yelled, beating his hairy
Chest, the brutal Lupu Pick:
Come out here, dog Manke Pansche
Feeling for him with a kick.
Ballad of the old woman
On Monday she rose up from her bed again
A thing they had thought she never would have done
Flu for her was as a sign from heaven
Since autumn she’s been nothing but skin and bone
For two days all she vomited was phlegm
And when she rose she was as white as snow
Coffee was her only drink by then
They’d given her the last rites weeks ago
And now once again she has risen up from death
The last rites after all were premature
This time, she said, she had been very loath
To say goodbye to her walnut chest of drawers
Even though there’s worm in it, you get
Attached to a venerable piece like that, truth is
She’d have missed it, you might say. God look after it
And now she’s bottled a few more blackberries
And had her teeth fixed, because you eat
Quite differently with teeth, you lay
Them handy by in a coffee cup overnight
And there they are for going into town next day
And also the children have written her a letter
They are wholly in God’s hands from now on
With God she will get through another winter
And the black dress too is still in good condition
On the proper enjoyment of spirituous liquors
Others mostly knock back a glass just like that
And get nothing from it but the drinker’s heart complaint
But when I drink, the world goes down with a grin
And I stay a minute longer. I feel that gives my life some point.
I like reading the paper the while, till my hands
Start trembling a little, then I don’t seem
To be getting drunk on purpose. I like to pretend
I know nothing about alcohol because at home
My mother advised me strongly against it
It was her secret sorrow, you might say.
But step by step I got into its clutches and not
Without benefit. I can feel my own red heart.
I feel that even my low life is not a mistake and all in vain
I honour the great thinkers. I understand them. I see the world as it is
And sometimes, if the image is not too far-fetched
Like a drunken carrier pigeon, I even fly over Mont Cenis.
I really do hear—you will not believe this, I know—
The rustling of tobacco fields on a bitter sort of plain
I know they ceased to exist four thousand years ago
But truly they do still bring me a certain solace.
Evening in the menagerie
Again the woman’s in labour
Again we hear her screams
And jokes are being served
Around the bare rooms
I cracked my joke for the Captain
Today again it fell flat
Again he didn’t get it
I must do better than that
A little snow has fallen
On the black wet boards today
Playing cards with Piotr
Passes some time away
At night it’s a good deal better
If you smoke. But those
Tricks with the phoney knife
Have long since ceased to amuse
Oh getting through the nights
Is harder than anyone knows
When the level of boredom rises
You can always chew your toes
The next-door captain’s nails
Will last him another trip
But I was not economical
And mine are all used up
In the sheds more out of the wind
It will be quieter by now
But up here there’s a wind tonight
And the thatch is worn nearly through
The trotter has done with dunging
Smoke’s all I can taste now
Perhaps if he can manage it
I will manage it too
The song of the roses of the Shipka Pass
It was a Sunday in my boyish years
And Father sang in that fine bass of his
Sang in the supping of the wine and beer
The song of the roses of the Shipka Pass.
And again a Sunday and again in his
Fine bass voice our father sang to us
And not of lilac did he sing nor lilies
He sang of roses on the Shipka Pass.
With tears in his moustache and frequently
Still Father in his fine bass sang to us
And did not sing of the roses of Mycenae
No, only of roses on the Shipka Pass.
Often when we could not keep our eyes open
Still from the last time Father had in his
A tear or two and he sang once again
The song of the roses on the Shipka Pass.
His grave was dug already but even then
Though rather pale he sang out nonetheless
That he might personally be forgotten
But roses would still bloom on the Shipka Pass.
Epistles to the Chicago people
2
Once kept to yourselves, the traffickers’ derisive laughter
At the markets in one continent or another
How it must have shaken you, and the cold in the regions of the fourth depth
Will have impregnated your skin.
Do you still love the blue eyes of the horse-thieves?
But when you come into the shelters
I shall look at your backs
To see whether the winters have marked you.
By your dead wrists
I shall be able to show your children
Whether you have stood in the rivers
Between chunks of ice and the black fish
And know something of the planet.
Oh in reality there are only
Conquered and cowards.
Well then.
Thoughts of a gramophone owner
1904 I acquired it and I’ve never been sorry.
I always keep it hidden during the day.
Something for the
dark hours of life, a nice piece of joinery
And the voice of Adelina Patti in it, pickled, as you might say.
The singer Adelina Patti died in 1911
God rest her soul, I’ve got her voice the way you get
Anything in life, for money, and a bit of paper saying where and when.
Her voice is still pretty good and will do me for a long time yet.
One day, I shouldn’t wonder, it will sing to my grandchildren as well.
Adelina I called it from the start. Because
Of an occasion when, being in drink, we fell
My dear Adelina’s voice is not quite what it was.
But it is remarkable and has astounded cleverer men than me
The things life brings. How far
We’ve come with our technology that she
In her wooden box is still singing Traviata!
In our grandparents’ day such a thing would not have been possible.
Lots of the arts were doomed to oblivion and that was that.
We are after all further on in good as well as ill.
A machine like this means a sort of immortality, does it not?
Often George says, Tonight bring tobacco and Adelina round my place
I’m bad with my nerves. And there she is, the whole shebang
And sings her Traviata and he puts on his most respectable face.
For eighteen years, be it said, Traviata’s all she’s sung.
Many a time I might have bought other records, I admit
And right from the start my wife wanted something to shimmy to
But at the last moment I’ve always thought better of it:
Multum non multa’s my motto and no one but Adelina would do.
Sentimental memories before an inscription
1
Between those yellowed papers that meant something once to me—
Drink before you read—get drunk, you really ought to—
A photograph. And there inscribed I see:
PURE. PRAGMATIC. NASTY. And my eye begins to water.
2
She always washed with almond soap
The flannel too was hers, that hangs above
The Tokay recipe and the Java pipe
To mask the smell of love.
3
She was the earnest type. She didn’t swim. She spent her days
In thought. Demanded sacrifice for art.
She loved love, not her lover. And her gaze
Remained undimmed by rose-tinted affairs of the heart.
4
She laughed out loud. Thought suffering was dumb
She had no bees in her bonnet, disdained all fads and freaks
She could give the cold shoulder, had it under her thumb
Just thinking about it gives me the shakes.
5
That’s how she was. By God I wish that, when I’ve breathed my last
People might read on my own grave: Requiescat
B.B. PURE. PRAGMATIC. NASTY.
No doubt you sleep well under that.
Christmas legend
Christmas Eve and we, the poor
All night long will be sitting here
And the room is cold that we house in
And the wind that blows outside blows in.
Come, dear Lord Jesus, enter too
For truly we have need of you.
We sit around this holy night
Like heathen who never saw the light.
The snow falls cold on these bones of ours.
The snow cannot bear to be out of doors:
Snow, come indoors with us, for sure
They’ll not house you in heaven either.
We’ll brew up a toddy and then we’ll feel
Warmer and easy, body and soul.
We’ll brew a hot toddy. Round our thin walls
Blindly some brute beast fumbles.
Quick, beast, come in with us—your kind too
This night has nowhere warm to go.
We’ll feed our coats to the fire and so
We’ll all be warmer than we are now.
Oh the joists will glow and we shan’t freeze
Not till the hour before sunrise.
Come in, dear wind, dear guest, welcome:
Like us, you have no house and home.
German sell-out
O my dark beloved country, you
Are impoverished
Gnarled tragic oak, what do you get
From the enslavement of the man sawing you to pieces?
Wild deep-travelling rivers what
Do you earn? Who do you belong to? Whose
Works do you drive?
Bright beech tree, how many
Sweaty hands will you go through
Before you are turned into warmth that costs a lot?
Things you need to know
1
You can be as pure as the driven snow and I still say
It has nothing whatsoever to do with inner purity
You might cure yourself of it with herbal tea
But Jeppe drinks schnapps and that’s the effrontery.
2
Nobody is to be blamed for wind, of course not
Every one of us has overindulged now and then
But surely there are better ways of managing it
Truly, people think you are sneering at them.
3
Comfort, and a bit of fun too, are all very well but you need to know
What is permissible and what is quite out of order
Nobody’s asking you to martyr yourself but you do
Have to have limits when there are other people’s feelings to consider.
4
And at family parties especially we are not used to that sort of behaviour
There it might indeed give real offence and even
Have repercussions, it shows your judgement to be poor
And quite simply we count on guests not doing that in front of the children.
Lala
Many a girl was robbed of her lily
But I got stung like no one I know
For I got the sort of lover who truly
Could teach the Devil a thing or two.
When he had turned me soft in the head
I clenched my teeth and I thought that’s what
Comes of not listening to Mam and Dad
But he felt no shame whatsoever, the rat.
He had the nerve to lay hands on a virgin
And wasn’t up to it. Drip. And then
In the neither-this-nor-that condition
Coolly he sends her home to her mother again.
He said he’d never had any trouble before
Only with me. I said: You’re the withered tree
And you practise on me! Better by far
You trotted off home yourself and didn’t go leading virgins astray.
He said he couldn’t understand me, why wasn’t I glad
I wouldn’t get pregnant with him? I was speechless!
As though I care anything about anything at all if I’ve had
Nothing from it. The louse, he couldn’t care less
If an innocent girl is undone.
His sort will put you out for the rubbish collection.
His sort don’t give a fig when the harm has begun to be done
Just so long as he has had his side of the fun.
The procession in Capri
In the days before he was forgotten
True, in remembrance of him every year
They carried his images through their towns.
But they led with everything necessary
To kill him
Nails, to tear holes in his flesh
The cock, to betray him
The dice, to part his garments
But after the image of his corpse
They carried his mother
So high that heaven was too low
And had to be lifted and carried alon
g behind her.
A short epistle alluding to some disagreements
1
A man who likes writing is glad
To have a topic.
When the Suez Canal was built
One man became famous because he was against it.
Some write against the rain
Others oppose the waxing and waning of the moon.
If their feuilleton is nice to look at
They become famous.
2
If a man lays his nose
On a railway line
It will be cut off
When the train comes
Be it ever so infallible.
But it can lie there
Till somebody finds it.
3
For two hundred years during its construction
The Great Wall of China was opposed.
Then it stood.
4
When the railway trains were young
The owners of stagecoaches disparaged them:
They had no tails, didn’t eat oats
And riding in them you couldn’t see the countryside slowly
And where did you ever see a locomotive that could defecate?