by Tom Kuhn
And you learn to win.
The Party is in danger
Get up! Get up!
The Party is in danger.
You are sick, but the Party is dying.
You are weak, you must help us!
Get up! The Party is in danger!
You have doubted, doubt no longer!
We are all but done for . . .
You have scolded the Party?
Do so no longer
The Party faces annihilation.
Get up! The Party is in danger.
Quickly, get up!
You are sick, but we need you.
Don’t die, you must help us.
Don’t stay away, we are heading into the struggle.
The Party is in danger.
Get up!
In praise of the Third Thing
We are forever hearing how quickly
Mothers lose their sons, but I
Kept my son. How did I keep him? Through
The Third Thing.
He and I were two, but the third
Common thing, our common endeavour, that
Made us one.
I have myself often heard
Sons conversing with their parents
But how much better than theirs was our conversation
Concerning the Third Thing, that we had in common
The great common matter of many people
How close we were to one another being
Close to this matter. How good we were to one another being
Close to this good thing.
Now the war is at its bloodiest . . .
1
Now the war is at its bloodiest
Grappling inseparably
You stand, worker against worker
Shoulder to shoulder
You fight side by side along with your class enemy
Fighting in the war
Makes you forget the struggles of peacetime
Your organizations, laboriously built up
With pence you could not do without
Are smashed. Your experiences
Seem forgotten and forgotten also seems
Your struggle for the bowl of soup
2
When the war is at its bloodiest
The soup runs out.
You are still fighting the heroic fight. You are still hearing
Behind you the commands of those who rule over you, but
The soup is giving out.
3
When the soup gives out
You begin to have your doubts. Soon
You know: the war
Is not your war.
You see behind you
The real enemy
The weapons turn round
It is beginning:
The fight for the bowl of soup.
Song
They have statute books, they have decrees
They have prisons and fortresses
(Not to mention their welfare agencies!)
They have judges and prison governors
Well-paid men who will stop at nothing
And all for what?
Do they really believe they will knuckle us under?
Before they vanish, which won’t be long
They’ll have realized that none of this can help them.
They have newspapers and printing presses
To fight against us and to shut our mouths
(Not to mention their men of state!)
They have priests and they have professors
Well-paid men who will stop at nothing
And all for what?
Must they really be frightened of the truth?
Before they vanish, which won’t be long
They’ll have realized that none of this can help them.
They have tanks and artillery
They have machine guns and hand grenades
(Not to mention their rubber truncheons!)
They have policemen and they have soldiers
Poorly paid, who will stop at nothing
And all for what?
Do they really have such powerful enemies?
Before they vanish, which won’t be long
They will see that none of this can help them.
Song of the coat and the patch
1
Always when our coats are in holes
You come running and say: things can’t go on like this
Oh we must remedy it by all means necessary
And zealously you run to the bosses
While we stand shivering and waiting
And back you come and triumphantly
You show us what you have won for us:
A scrap to patch it with.
Good, that’s a patch for it
But where, oh where’s
The whole new coat?
2
Always when we are crying out with hunger
You come running and say: things can’t go on like this
Oh we must remedy it by all means necessary
And zealously you run to the bosses
While we stand hungering and waiting
And back you come and triumphantly
You show us what you have won for us:
A crust of bread.
Good, that’s the crust of bread
But where, oh where’s
The loaf itself?
3
We don’t just need it patching
We need the whole coat
We don’t need just a crust of bread
We need the loaf itself
We don’t just need a workplace
We need the factory, the coal, the iron ore and
Power in the state.
So that is what we need but
What, oh what
Are you offering us?
In praise of the Vlassovas
This is our comrade Vlassova, the good combatant.
Diligent, cunning and reliable.
Reliable in the struggle. Cunning against our enemy and diligent
As an agitator. Her work is small
And the finished thing is tough and indispensable.
She is not alone, wherever she struggles
Like her struggle, tough, reliable and cunning
In Tver, Glasgow, Lyons and Chicago
Shanghai and Calcutta
All the Vlassovas of all the lands, good moles
Unknown soldiers of the Revolution
Indispensable.
Song of the Mother on the heroic death of the coward Vessovchikov
So what was he like?
Whatever he was like
When he went to the wall
He could die.
And he did not compare that wall with other walls
Nor himself with other men but
Threatened, prepared himself to convert himself into
Dust that could not be threatened. And all else
That happened he carried out
Like something agreed, as though honouring
A contract. And within him
His wishes were extinguished. Strictly
He forbade himself every start of feeling. Inside himself
He shrank and vanished. Like a blank sheet
He escaped everything
Except this description.
Uncollected Poems
1931–1933
Strike song
Come out, comrade. Risk
The pence you no longer have
The place to sleep that the rain falls on
And the workplace you will lose tomorrow.
Out on the streets! Fight!
It is too late for waiting.
Help yourself by helping us: show
Solidarity.
Give up what you have, comrade!
You have nothing.
Come out, comrade, face the guns
And insist on your wages.
When you know you have nothing to lose
Then the guns t
he police have will not be enough.
Out on the streets! Fight!
It is too late for waiting.
Help yourself by helping us: show
Solidarity
Lullabies
1
When I bore you, your brothers cried out
For broth, and I had nothing for them at all.
When I bore you we had no money for the gasman
You weren’t going to get much light from the world.
All those months I carried you
With your father I talked it through
But we had no money for the doctor
And we needed something with our bread too.
When I conceived you we’d all but
Buried hope of work or bread
It was up to Karl Marx and Lenin
To show us workers the future wasn’t dead.
2
When I carried you in my womb
Things weren’t good for us at all
And I often said: the one I carry
Will be born in a benighted world.
And I resolved to take care
That here on earth he shouldn’t lose his way
The one I carry, for he is needed to win
A better world, better every day.
And I saw great mountains of coal
Fenced about, and said, let’s not be forlorn
The one I carry, he’ll care for it
This will be the coal that keeps him warm.
And I saw bread laid out behind glass
Denied the hungry and the poor
The one I carry: this bread will feed him too
Of that he’ll make damn sure.
When I saw them drive past in their cars
I whispered to myself, I can feel
The one I carry, he’ll make sure
You lot won’t be sitting at the wheel.
When I carried you in my womb
I often whispered quietly to myself and swore
You that I’m carrying inside my body
You’ll have to be unstoppable, for sure.
3
I delivered you
And that was struggle enough
To conceive you was an enterprise
To carry you was bold and tough.
Old Moltke and bloody Blücher, my child
Would have no victories to report, no glory
In a world where a few diapers
Make such a huge success story.
Bread and a cup of milk are victories!
A warm room—a battle won all right!
And until you’re grown up tall
I’ll be fighting every day and every night.
To win you a crust of bread
Is to stand alongside the picket ranks
Is to fight against the generals
To rise up against the tanks.
But once, in struggle, I have raised you
And you’re big, my little one
I shall have won myself another
Who will fight with us and overcome.
4
My son, whatever becomes of you
They stand there tapping the truncheons by their sides
For you, my son, this earth is just
A rubbish dump—and even that is occupied.
My son, listen what your mother has to say
A life awaits you, worse than any plague
But I’m not bringing you into the world
So you put up with that, make no mistake.
What you don’t have—don’t give up on
Take for yourself what they won’t give.
I, your mother, I didn’t bear you
So you’d lie down and sleep under a bridge.
Perhaps you’re not made of exceptional stuff
I’ve no money for you, and no prayers to pray
I rely on you yourself, in hope
You won’t just loaf about and throw your time away.
When I lie sleepless next to you
I often feel for your little fist by my side.
They’re planning wars with you already
What can I do, that you won’t listen to their lies?
Your mother, my son, won’t fool with you
That you’re so special, something higher
But nor has she raised you with so much heartache
So one day you’ll hang screaming on barbed wire.
The song of the SA man
My belly groaned and as I slept
In hunger and fear
I heard their shouts of “Germany
Arise!” echoing in my ear.
I saw so many marching
To the third Reich, they said.
I had nothing to lose and I marched along
Wherever the march led.
So I marched along and next to me
A big pot belly went
And when I shouted “bread and work”
He gave his loud assent.
At the head of the march they had knee-high boots
My feet were sore and wet
So we marched on side by side
Always keeping step.
I set off to the left, and he marched right
And told me I was wrong
I let myself be ordered about
And blindly trotted along.
And all of the poor and hungry
Marched on, their faces pale
Shoulder to shoulder with the well-fed
Into their Reich fairy tale.
They gave me a revolver
And said: it’s time to fight
And when I took aim at their enemy
It was my brother there in the sights.
Now I know: it’s my brother there
And it’s hunger that makes us kin
And here I’m marching along with
His enemy and mine.
I am the one who gunned him down
Betrayed my own brother’s trust
And yet I know, when he’s beaten
I too am lost.
Where are you going?
1
Where are you going? Of course
Wherever you are going, there
It will be worse and
Wherever you are coming from, there
It was better.
2
What are you fleeing from? Fleeing
You would not escape your misery
No one is keeping you, here
You will not be missed
Where you are going
You will not be welcome.
3
You are afraid of going below
You are not yet below.
You will learn: there is
More than one below
When you think you are down below.
4
If you saw where you are going
You would halt.
If you knew
What is planned for you
You would look around you.
5
Can you not halt?
Can you not turn round?
You are fleeing but
Where are you fleeing to?
Fleeing
You will not escape your misery.
So halt. Look around you.
6
Know that you can improve your situation.
From a flat to a bed-sit . . .
From a flat to a bed-sit
From a bed-sit to a tent
From a tent
To a kip under the bridges
Last meal
I hear there’s to be an execution in this place
When I considered in what role it would be best to appear
In a place where there’s to be an execution
I decided: perpetrator.
How capable human beings are!
How capable human beings are!
Their forgetfulness
Enables them to live.
So friendliness . . .
So friendliness
>
Strode in like a typhoon
And kindness, greatest of all
Felt like the cold
But now stop hoping . . .
But now stop hoping
That things will get better
If they do get better
They won’t get better for you.
What are you still waiting for?
What are you still waiting for?
Stop negotiating: there is
Nothing more to negotiate.
I am his enemy . . .
I am his enemy, only
He doesn’t know him.
I share his soup. I
Don’t help him get his wages. I
Share his room, I
Clothe myself from him, I live
Off him.
Soon he will know me, he
Will remove me. He will
Go away.
The fight against diabetes
After removing the pancreas from a dog
Minkowski noted that it urinated frequently and drank a great deal.
He found glucose in the urine. Several further experiments
On dogs, cats and a pig
Confirmed the hypothesis that animals without a pancreas
Excrete glucose. But even small remnants of the organ
Left in the body of the treated animal
And continuing to secrete their juices into the blood