by Tom Kuhn
When the poor man’s lamb is butchered
Mostly two will slit its throat
And the strife between these butchers
Sure the policeman sorts it out.
Song for the foundation of the National Deposit Bank
To a national bank’s foundation
None, I think, will raise objection.
We need ways of making money
If we can’t inherit any
And shares will better serve that need
Than the handgun or the blade.
Nothing’s problematical
Except the initial capital.
But lacking that, you will be left
With the obvious option: theft.
Let’s not fuss how we get ours
Where did the other banks get theirs?
Certainly it came from somewhere
Taken from someone, that’s for sure.
So the happy end has happened . . .
So the happy end has happened
You’re my friend and I’m your friend
Once the money’s safely trousered
Mostly there’s a happy end.
Don’t go fishing in troubled waters
Fred warns Bob and Bob warns Fred
But they finish best of buddies
Feeding on the poor man’s bread.
For there’s some who are in darkness
And there’s others in the light
And we see those in the light, sir
Those in darkness are out of sight.
Ballad of the man on the street
After thirty years of effort and disappointment
At last he was easier, he went away
Easily expunging names engraved in bronze
Mingling with the multitude on the streets
Forgetting his face, greedy
For the sight of something kindred
But after another forty years
He was drawing quadrilaterals in the sand with his toe
And they changed shape, enlarging or
Shrinking and ceaselessly multiplying
From the same surface area
In the last years however
All he saw in the sand were footprints
Of people who had left for it seemed to him
That here he was viewing the law in a truer because
More untraceable form
Later he returned to the world
To eat and drink and
Take part in purpose and unreason
Sonnet on the new edition of François Villon
Here on decaying paper comes once more
Printed for you his testament
In which to all acquaintances he offers excrement—
At the doling out, please shout, Some over here!
You spat at him, where is your spittle now?
And he himself, whom you cold-shouldered, where is he?
Outlasting him, and spittle, here’s his poetry
But will it last much longer, I’d like to know.
Instead of smoking ten cigars you might
At no more cost read it again (and so
Acquaint yourselves with what he thought of you . . .)
For three marks where’ll you get stuff with more bite?
Let each take from it whatever he thinks fit
I’ve taken things myself, I must admit . . .
And so that a moon would light him while he croaked . . .
And so that a moon would light him while he croaked
He got out of the city before he did
And in a hurry reached the miserable frontier
That noise and silence had negotiated
And between three corrugated iron sheds
And the one fir tree still upright
He ate his final soups and slept
A final dreamless night.
The morning passed quite variously. Midday
It was still not warm. Wind from the north. And when
Towards five from over the trees clouds came his way
They were too late. He was unreachable by then.
Towards midnight three continents went under
And towards morning the USA. All he had seen
And not seen, as he passed over
It was as though none of it had ever been.
Here is the river . . .
1
Here is the river.
To swim it is dangerous.
Two men stand on the bank
One swims the river, the other
Hesitates. Is the one courageous?
Is the other a coward? Across the river
One has some business.
2
One climbs out of danger
Onto the bank he has conquered and breathes deep
He enters what he owns
He takes fresh nourishment.
But the other climbs out of danger
Gasping for breath, into nothing.
Weakened, what awaits him
Is fresh danger. Are they both brave?
Are they both wise?
Oh, both having conquered the river
Climbing out, they are not both victors.
3
We and: you and I
That is not the same thing.
We are both victorious
And you defeat me.
Song of the courts
Camp-followers of the robber-bands
Come the judiciary.
When the innocent man is slain
The judges congregate over him and condemn him.
At the murdered man’s grave
His rights are murdered too.
The sentence of the courts
Falls like the shadow of a cleaver.
Oh surely the cleaver would suffice? Why
Accompany it with the letter of the verdict?
See that flight of birds! Where are the vultures flying to?
There was no food for them in the desert:
The courts will give them food.
The murderers flee there. The persecutors
Find sanctuary there. And there
The thieves hide their booty, wrapping it
In paper on which the law is written.
The unemployment, gentlemen . . .
The unemployment, gentlemen
Is a very tricky thing.
Eagerly we have seized on
Every chance that came along
To discuss it—yes, whenever
You like, any time at all . . .
For unemployment is never
Good for a people’s morale.
We have no explanation
For the unemployment—and yet
It is a tribulation
And high time . . . I grant you that.
But really we can’t even say we
Have no explanation
For that would injure us gravely
Not being the way to win
Us the trust of the masses
And that we can’t do without
For it’s best they leave things to us
Or chaos would break out
And that would be dangerous indeed
At a time as uncertain as this
And can’t, God forbid, be allowed
With unemployment as it is!
But what would be your opinion?
It would suit us to hear you say:
This phenomenon will be gone again
Just as it came, one day.
But don’t tell us the tale:
“We’ll never have jobs to go to
Until the ones on the dole
Aren’t us anymore but you!”
How can the voice . . .
How can the voice coming from the houses
Be that of justice
When in the yards the homeless are lying?
How can he be anything but a swindler
Who teaches the hungry anything
But how to abolish hunger?
Wh
o will not give the hungry bread
Is asking for violence
Who in the boat
Has no room for those going under
Has no fellow feeling
Who knows no way of helping
Let him be silent
1st Epistle to the Hettenbachers
In the Golden Age suicide was a daily occurrence. People went to their deaths as one might to an evening’s entertainment.
They made so little of it they would sometimes forget the agreed date and arrive a day late or a day early.
They stepped outside, took a look at the weather, saw a rain cloud and flung themselves into the river flowing by. Or on an excursion of no great distance they could not be bothered to return home, called twice for a cab and in boredom dashed out their brains against a breakwater.
The great poet Gabriele was three times only by the loud pleading of his friends restrained from killing himself—once because his langouste was too salty; a second time when at table, as he was recounting something he had experienced, a tired servant yawned; and a third time because the sheet of paper he wanted was in the next room.
But even quite humble people were cultivated enough not to put up with any discomfort, even the slightest.
And why? Because life was precious.
4th Epistle to the Hettenbachers
When I entered that disreputable house, above whose door stood the words “Uhme Empe”, there was a great jostling and shouting as at a horse fair.
In one corner stood a small throng of interested parties, their top hats pushed back off their brows, hands in pockets, jingling coins. The auction had begun, the bidding was in full swing.
A corpulent fellow, standing on my toes, shouted over and over again, Here I stand, I can do no other, God help me! And an even fatter person, Asiatic in his looks, was enjoining me, Be rid of all desire and so be free of pain! And behind him, a tall scrawny individual with a countryman’s beard, simplified that and said, Turn the other cheek!
Songs and Verses from Kuhle Wampe and The Mother
Solidarity Song
The Sunday Song of the Free Youth Movement
1
Onwards and no forgetting
What gives us strength today
When we’ve food and when we’re hungry
Onwards and no forgetting
Our solidarity!
First: not all of us are here
Second: this is just one day
When the other six of labour
Heavy on our bodies weigh.
2
Onwards and no forgetting
What gives us strength today
When we’ve food and when we’re hungry
Onwards and no forgetting
Our solidarity!
First: this is not all our number
Second: this is just one day
These here lying in the meadows
Back there on the streets they lay.
3
Onwards and no forgetting
What gives us strength today
When we’ve food and when we’re hungry
Onwards and no forgetting
Our solidarity!
When we saw the sunlight shining
In the fields or in the town
No one ever said of either:
Here’s the world we call our own.
4
Onwards and no forgetting
What gives us strength today
When we’ve food and when we’re hungry
Onwards and no forgetting
Our solidarity!
And we’re only on an outing
From the muck that chokes us and we get
In the meadows just a fleeting
Whiff of something sweeter than our lot.
5
Onwards and no forgetting
What gives us strength today
When we’ve food and when we’re hungry
Onwards and no forgetting
Our solidarity!
Leave your slum and leave your shanty
That you call your house and home
After six grey days of labour
Now the joyful seventh’s come.
6
Onwards and no forgetting
What gives us strength today
When we’ve food and when we’re hungry
Onwards and no forgetting
Our solidarity!
For we know that these are only
Drops in the ocean of our need
We are angry, we are hungry
On such crumbs of comfort we’ll not feed.
7
Onwards and no forgetting
What gives us strength today
When we’ve food and when we’re hungry
Onwards and no forgetting
Our solidarity!
But one day they’ll see us and they’ll hear us
Singing in the streets and heading for
Another sort of labour, all of us
The labour for a thing that will endure!
Forwards then and no forgetting
Streets and fields: ours or theirs?
Forwards then and no forgetting
Ask the questions, hear the answers
Streets and fields? Ours, ours!
Ballad of the drop in the ocean
1
Summer comes and the skies of summer
Shine also for you.
The water is warm and in the warm water
You lie too.
On the greener meadows
You have pitched your tents. The streets
Heard your singing. The woods
Welcome you in. Well then
Has the misery ended? Have better times begun?
Are you cared for now? Are your worries gone?
Is your world already a better one?
Oh no: all this is a drop in the ocean.
2
The woods have welcomed the evicted. The lovely sky
Shone on people without prospect. Those now living in summer tents
Have no other shelter. Those lying in the warm water
Have not eaten. Those
Marching on the streets are only continuing
Their unending march for work.
Has the misery ended? Have better times begun?
Are you cared for now? Are your worries gone?
Is your world already a better one?
Oh no: all this is a drop in the ocean.
3
Will you make do with the shining sky?
Will the warm water not let you go? Will the woods
Hold on to you?
Will you be comforted with crumbs? Will you be consoled?
The world is waiting for your demands
It needs your dissatisfaction, your proposals
The world looks to you, you are the world’s last hope.
You must no longer be contented when
All they give you is a drop in the ocean.
We wanted a place to live . . .
1
We wanted a place to live:
Over there—hurry! they said.
We yelled fit to waken the dead
We shall have a place to live
But everywhere was full already.
Think about it, think hard until you see
As things are now they do not have to be.
2
We went in search of employment
They said: apply over there!
But the firm had just gone bust
And people were looking lost
And they asked us did we know anywhere?
Think about it, think hard until you see
As things are now they do not have to be.
3
We said: well then let’s go swimming
The water was full of us
And when we’re done with swimming
We’ll go back and ask will they please tell us
How it can go on like this?
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br /> Think about it, think hard until you see
As things are now they do not have to be.
Spring
1
Spring is coming.
Between the sexes the game resumes
The lovers find their way to one another.
The beloved’s gently enclosing hand
Shocks the girl’s breast cold.
Her glance seduces him.
2
In a new light
The landscape appears to the lovers in spring.
The first flocks of birds are sighted
Very high.
The air is already warm.
The days are becoming long and the meadows
Keep their brightness late.
3
The growth of the trees and grasses in spring
Is measureless.
Fruitful unceasingly
Is the forest, are the meadows, the fields.
And the earth gives birth to the new
Without heed.
Coming from the crowded tenements . . .
1
Coming from the crowded tenements
From the dark streets of the embattled cities
You gather in multitudes
To fight
And you learn to win.
2
With not a penny to spare
You bought your bread, mouths went without
For your tram fares.
3
Out of the crushing struggle
For the bare necessities
For a few hours
Once more you gather to fight the common fight