The Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht
Page 26
That research will not be conducted on a creature
Solely because it is dying out.
So concerning the way of life of the Uncle
Truly nobody can tell you anything
Nor concerning his wishes within the community
(Always supposing he still has such wishes)
Is anything more known
On high.
Why do I eat bread . . . ?
Why do I eat bread that is too dear?
Isn’t corn too dear in Illinois?
Who fixed it with whom
That the man in Irkutsk
Won’t have the tractors
But rust shall?
Is it wrong that I eat?
I’m not saying Rockefeller is a stupid man . . .
I’m not saying Rockefeller is a stupid man
But you must admit
That Standard Oil was a matter of general interest
What kind of a man would it have taken
To prevent the setting-up of Standard Oil?
I tell you
Such a man has yet to be born.
What proof is there that Rockefeller has made mistakes?
Didn’t money come in?
Listen:
There was an interest in money coming in.
Anything else bothering you?
Myself I’d be glad to find a man
Who isn’t stupid and I can prove
You chose the right man
Did he not have a nose for money?
Has he not reached a ripe old age?
And could he not do stupid things and
Set up Standard Oil nevertheless?
Is it your view we might have got Standard Oil cheaper?
Do you think another man
Would have set it up with less trouble?
(Since it was a matter of general interest?)
Are you against stupid people in every case?
Do you think well of Standard Oil?
I hope you don’t suppose
A stupid man is
One who thinks.
If you had read the newspapers attentively . . .
If you had read the newspapers attentively as I have
You’d bury your hopes
That an improvement is still possible.
Nobody dies of his own accord!
And what use was the war?
Of course we shifted a few people
And how many have been fathered since?
And still we can’t even
Arrange a war like that every year.
What can you expect even a hurricane to achieve
Miami and the whole of Florida together
And two hurricanes involved
And first we’re told: 50,000 dead and then
Next day it turns out:
3,700.
They’ll make it up in no time
Even for the people of Miami themselves
It’s scarcely a breathing space
And what about us
Who are so far away?
It’s as though we’re being made a mock of!
Are we to be made a mock of on top of everything else?
Surely at the very least we have a right
To an untroubled bitterness.
A man of sense . . .
A man of sense
Is worth his weight in gold.
He does what you would have done
He does much less than you suppose!
He knows the score.
Where others still see a way out
He gives up.
He doesn’t believe
In things that cause difficulties. Why
Should a thing that is in the general interest
Cause difficulties?
You can tell a man of sense
By the fact that he has an appetite for apples
If enough people
Have an appetite for apples and
There are enough apples for all of them.
Are you a man of sense?
Then see to it that the city grows
Business thrives and
Human beings go on multiplying!
He was easy to get . . .
He was easy to get.
It was possible on the second evening.
I waited till the third (and knew
I was taking a risk).
Then he said, laughing: it’s the bath salts
Not your hair.
But he was easy to get.
For a month I left him straight after making love.
Every third day I stayed away.
I never wrote.
But store up snow in a pot
It gets dirty all the same.
I did more than I could
When it was already over.
I threw out the bitches who were sleeping with him
As though I didn’t mind
I did it laughing and crying.
I turned on the gas
Five minutes before he arrived, I
Borrowed money in his name:
It did no good.
But one night I slept
And one morning I got up
I washed myself from head to toe
Ate and said to myself:
That’s it now.
Truth is:
I slept with him twice more
But by God and my mother
It was nothing.
Like everything else
It passed.
Again and again . . .
Again and again
When I look at this man
He hasn’t been drinking and
He laughs as he used to
I think: things are getting better.
Spring is coming, good times are coming
The times that have gone
Have come again
Love is beginning again, soon
Things will be as they were.
Again and again
When I have been speaking to him
He has eaten and he does not go away
He talks to me, nor
Does he have his hat on
I think: it will be good
The ordinary time has passed—
You can talk to a person, he listens
Love is beginning again, soon
Things will be as they were.
The rain
Can’t go back up
When the wound
No longer hurts
The scar does.
Blasphemy
If there is something
That you can have for money
Then take the money
If a man goes by and has money
Hit him on the head and take his money
You are allowed to.
Do you want to live in a house?
Go into a house
Lie down in a bed
If the woman comes in
Accommodate her.
If the roof caves in, go away.
You are allowed to.
If there is a thought
That you don’t know
Think the thought
If it costs you money
If it demands your house
Think it, think it.
You are allowed to.
In the interest of order
For the good of the state
For the future of mankind
For your own well-being
You are allowed to.
Directive for the authorities
1
On the day the Unknown Soldier
Was buried saluted by guns
From London to Singapore
In the middle of that day at the same time
From two minutes past twelve to four minutes past twelve
For a full two minutes all work ceased
Solely to honour
The Unknown Soldier.
2
But despite all this
It should perhaps be decreed
Tha
t the Unknown Man
From the great cities of the populated continents
Should finally be honoured.
Any man from the network of traffic
Whose face has not been noticed
Whose secret being has gone unheeded
Whose name has not been clearly heard
Such a man
In the interest of all of us
Ought to be remembered with abundant honours
And a radio address
“To the Unknown Man”
And a pause in the work of all people
All over the planet.
Address
You have been shot
After due process. I have seen the report.
In town they know the hour of it.
Stop pretending.
While you are speaking everybody knows
You can’t see anything now.
Admit it:
You have looked down the barrels of guns.
The salvo was fired. The squad
Marched away. The smoke at the wall
Lifted:
You
Lay where you fell.
Wash as much as you like!
The lime on your face
Won’t come off.
I beg you
Don’t speak to me.
When I see your face
I remember you:
You have been shot.
700 intellectuals worship an oil tank
1
Uninvited
We have come
700 (and many more still on their way)
From wherever there is no wind of change
From the mills that grind slowly and where
No sleeper awakes.
2
And suddenly overnight
We behold you
Oil tank.
3
Yesterday you were not there
But today
There is only you.
4
Hasten hither all you
Who are sawing off the branch you are sitting on
Workers!
God has come again
In the form of an oil tank.
5
Ugly one
You are the loveliest!
Do us violence
Lord of the facts!
Extinguish the ego
Make us collective.
For not as we will
But as you will.
6
You are not made of ivory
And ebony but of
Iron.
Gory! Glory! Glory!
Unprepossessing as you are.
7
You are not invisible
Nor without end
But seven metres high.
There is no mystery in you
There is oil.
And you deal with us
Not at your own discretion nor inscrutably
But by calculation.
8
What is grass to you?
You sit on it.
Where formerly there was grass
There you sit now, oil tank
And in your presence a feeling
Is nothing.
9
Hear us therefore
And deliver us from the evil of the spirit
In the name of electrification and statistics
Forwards with Ford!
The cities are built for you . . .
The cities are built for you. Joyfully they await your arrival.
The doors of the houses stand wide open. Food
Is already on the table.
Since the cities are very large
For those who don’t know what the game is
Plans have been drawn up by those who do
From which it is easy to learn the quickest way
To your goal.
Since we didn’t know the precise nature of your wishes
Naturally we await your suggestions for improvement.
Here and there
Something may not yet be quite to your taste
But that will speedily be changed
Without any exertion on your part.
In short: arriving
You will be in good hands. Everything was made ready long ago. All
You need do is come.
You, a man seeing the indispensable . . .
1
You, a man seeing the indispensable
Done by few, don’t desert them!
Don’t ask where is your share of the food
Don’t ask how well liked you are.
What’s right
Wants very little indication now.
Don’t name a substitute
When you are needed.
2
Why do you count as a kindness
Only what you wished for
Since you know very well that you wish unwisely?
3
Don’t continually contemplate
Your few scars!
Consider this: the blows you dealt
Were received without complaint.
Your moods were put up with
You were respected.
When you, not getting what you wanted
Refused what you needed most
Nobody reprimanded you.
Burdens were laid upon you
That are only laid on the safest shoulders.
You were overlooked, being closest at hand.
Of you was expected
Special insight.
4
So they eat last to whom the work is closest: the cooks.
5
However you were treated, just so
Were they treated who are most respected.
6
Don’t, therefore, add your name
To the unending list
Of those who have fallen away.
Songs of the proletariat
I note you insist I should vanish
I see that in your opinion I eat too much
I do understand that you are not used to dealing with people like me
Well then, I shan’t vanish.
I have urged you
To hand over your meat
I have walked beside you
And strongly recommended that you move out
For this purpose I learned your language
In the end
Everyone understood me
But next morning there was still no meat.
I sat down one more day
To give you a chance to come
And justify yourselves.
When I return
Under a harsher moon, my friends
I shall come in a tank
Speak with artillery and
Get rid of you.
Whatever my tank rides through
That will be a street
What my guns say
That will be my opinion
But among all
I shall spare only my brother
And do no more than hit him in the mouth.
I told him to move out . . .
I told him to move out
He had occupied the room here seven weeks already
And didn’t want to move out
He laughed and supposed
I was joking
When he came home in the evening
His suitcase was on the doorstep. That
Gave him something to think about.
I hear you say . . .
I hear you say:
He talks about America
He knows nothing about America.
He was never there.
But believe me
You understand me very well when I talk about America.
And the best thing about America is:
That we understand it.
Cuneiform script
Only you understand
(Needless to say, it is a dead thing)
But shall we not learn from people
<
br /> Who have understood
Being understood?
You, sir
We do not understand
But we do understand New York
I tell you:
Those people understand what they are doing
And so we understand them.
Everyone knows that the solitary mistrustful man . . .
Everyone knows that the solitary mistrustful man
Inclines to criminality
But the criminal
Has reason to be mistrustful.
Don’t tell me your mistrust
Has its reason in the crimes of others.
Wherever the mistrust comes from, the mistrustful man
Inclines to criminality.
Some, falling in a river, reach the bank with ease
Others with difficulty and others not at all.
This is a matter of indifference to the river.
You must reach the bank.
Be told: no one but you
Can ask of you that you live.
The mistrustful man
Thinks too well of himself
Let a man being pursued
Not rate too highly what is being pursued.
Earthquakes may swallow you up
But they are not against you by design.
The earth that has swallowed you up
Can hardly be said to be full.
The mistrust between the classes
Is a quite different matter.