by Tom Kuhn
Nobody wants goodness, they want cash,
And their hearts are hard and mean and tight.
But suppose a good man has some money,
Just enough, he thinks, to set things right,
Then the villain who thinks evil’s fun, he’d
Better watch out: the fire’s alight!
Humankind is not so bad as p’raps you thought,
There was little cause to be downcast, sir.
Things are looking up; just like before.
Hearts are beating strong again and faster.
You can tell the servant from his master.
And the law is once again the law.
The madam’s song
Oh, you know how people say a red moon
Shining on the water makes the girls go weak
And you’ve heard how all the ladies swoon
For a handsome bloke. Believe me, it’s a joke!
I’ve seen girls with hearts on fire
But their thoughts were on—something higher.
Though it may not seem polite:
Decent girls will quickly tire
Of a gentleman who’s tight,
Yet they can be quite adoring
If you learn to treat them right.
Money makes a girl feel sexy—
It’s as true as it is trite.
So tell me, what’s the use of a red moon
Shining on the water, if you’re stony broke?
Handsome men don’t have a silver lining:
When they’re out of cash, believe me it’s no joke.
I’ve seen girls with hearts on fire
But their thoughts were on—something higher.
Though it may not seem polite:
Don’t imagine you’ll inspire
All that passion and delight
Till the girl has had her breakfast.
No my friend, that’s just not right.
Food is good, and money’s sexy—
It’s as true as it is trite.
The landowners’ roundelay
Perhaps the year will pass without ado now?
Perhaps the fearful shadows now will scatter
And all those rumours that the people chatter
To frighten us will turn out quite untrue now.
Perhaps in time the people will forget us,
As we’d forget this last year’s strife and dread,
And we’ll sit down to many happy suppers.
Perhaps we’ll even die in peace in bed?
Perhaps their oaths will turn to blessings by and by?
Perhaps this night will flood the world in light?
Perhaps this moon won’t wane, but shine on bright?
Perhaps the rain will fall back to the sky!
Uncollected Poems
1934–1936
The chalk cross
I am a maid in service. I had a thing
With a man who was in the SA.
One day before he went off
He showed me, laughing, how they do it
To catch the troublemakers.
With a piece of chalk from his jacket pocket
He made a small cross on the palm of his hand.
He told me, prepared like that he goes out
In civvies to the labour exchange
Where the unemployed stand griping
And he gripes too and, so doing, slaps
As a sign of approval and fellow feeling
A griper on the shoulder, upon which the marked man
A white cross on his back, is intercepted by the SA.
We laughed about that.
I went out with him for three months, then I noticed
He’d stolen money out of my savings book.
He’d said he wanted to look after it for me (for the times are uncertain).
When I confronted him he swore he had
Honest intentions. And, to placate me, he
Laid his hand on my shoulder.
I turned away in fear. Back home
I looked in the mirror, whether there was not, on my back
A white cross.
The doctor
This sick man
Has been laid by my enemies on my examination table.
He is bleeding from seventeen wounds and speaks in a fever.
How do I dare to bandage him?
He has surely been beaten
I mustn’t have anything to do with him.
Doomed to die
There comes one, keep out of his way
He’s under suspicion
That he saw them committing a crime.
He came round the corner and saw them
At their butchery. Now
He is lost.
No one, of course, will give him a hearing
That’s much too dangerous. He himself
Of course, speaks to no one. But his children at lunch
Listen to each and every word and
Report it to the authorities.
He is only still free
Because they’re not yet agreed about the spoils
And they need him, to threaten each other.
The neighbour
I am the neighbour. I informed against him.
We don’t want rabble-rousers
In our building.
When we hung out the swastika flag
He didn’t want to.
When we challenged him
He asked us if we had in our room
Where we live with our four children
So much space we could fit a flagpole.
When we said that we believed in the future once more
He laughed.
That they beat him up on the stairs
We didn’t like that. They tore his jacket.
That wasn’t necessary. None of us
Has that many jackets.
But at least he’s gone now, and there’s quiet in the house.
We have enough troubles as it is, we need
Some peace and quiet.
We’ve noticed, some people
Look away when they meet us. But
The people who took him away say
We did just the right thing.
Who will teach the teacher?
I am a teacher
But who will teach me?
How can I know what they want to have taught?
I am a willing soul, prepared to teach anything.
It’s right that the butchers should be honoured
But perhaps not every butcher?
Which ones then should I not honour? Perhaps
I am already lost: I called
The Führer a saint, merely.
I’ll do anything, but
I’m human and I may go astray.
When the incorruptible lawyer . . .
When the incorruptible lawyer
Book of the law in hand
Stood in the old court of law
With, in front of him, on the desk with the deep grooves
Worn by the elbows of the prosecutors
The bloody shoes of the murder victim
And was about to begin his speech—
Soldiers came and took away the desk from beneath his elbows
Threw the shoes on the rubbish heap before his very eyes
Tore the book from his fingers and gave him in its place
A new book with new laws.
Whereas from that room the listeners
Hurried, bustling and in fear.
Turning the pages of the new book the lawyer recognized
The old words on the familiar pages, only now they denoted
Other things. The murderer was now called
“The victim of violence”. Homes laid waste
Were “in the process of reconstruction”. Theft was called
“The receipt of alms”. Compulsory was “voluntary”.
He who exercised arbitrary power now “shouldered responsibility”.
Whereas he who asked where
goodness had gone was called
“Troublemaker”. In the same way
Truth was now called “lies”. Many more words
Were changed, but had not
Altogether disappeared.
Deeply troubled the prosecutor searched through
The new book. So does the law
Live on? he thought. And is it merely changed?
That is surely thinkable. Where everything is in flux
So too the law can change! Why not?
The Roman Emperor Nero . . .
The Roman Emperor Nero, who likewise
Craved recognition as a great artist, is said
At the sight of Rome in flames at his bidding, high on a tower
To have strummed his harp. On a similar occasion
The Führer, at the sight of a burning building, got out
His pencil and sketched
The sweeping groundplan
Of a new palace. So, in their choice of artform
They differ, these two.
The Emperor Napoleon and my friend the carpenter
The great Emperor Napoleon
In fact was somewhat short
But all the wide world trembled
At his every little fart.
All the world trembled.
The reason? He had cannons
And smashed everything to bits
And all who did not tremble
He told them they were shit.
But everyone trembled.
My friend, he’s a carpenter
He works, he never stops
But if he ever asks for anything
They tell him: shut your trap.
All tell him: shut your trap
And if my friend had cannons
And was an idle slob
He could get whatever he wanted
And nobody would say: shut your gob.
Not one would say: shut your gob.
Medea from Łódź
There is an old old story
A thousand years old or more
About a woman called Medea
Who arrived on a foreign shore
And it was the man who loved her
Who brought her there. He said
My house and home are yours now
And here you lay your head.
The language she spoke
Was not the same as theirs
For milk and bread and love
Their words were not hers.
The way she walked was different
And she had different hair.
They looked at her askance
She was never at home there.
And what became of her
Is told by Euripides
To a bitter end, long long ago
In his mighty choruses.
Now the wind passes over the rubble
Of that inhospitable town
And over the stones they stoned her with
Who wasn’t one of their own.
Now suddenly we hear
There are stories going round
That once again Medeas
Are being seen in our towns.
Through the trams, the cars, the trains
The hue and cry again
In 1934
In this city of ours, Berlin.
The inquiry
The authorities are conducting an inquiry
So they say. In this city district
People no longer sleep at night.
No one knows who it was
Nor what crime was committed
Everyone is a suspect.
When the people spend their nights sweeping suspicion from their doorsteps
The crimes of the powers that be
Pile up
Unheeded.
Little songs for Steff
Once there was a hawk
Whom many thought a dork
His critics had a go at him
And said as an aside
He couldn’t even swim.
Of course he had to have a go
And sank at once, and so:
The critics all felt justified.
Once there was a crow
A sly old so-and-so
To whom a young canary
Sang from behind the bars:
“Of art
Thou knowest not a fart.”
The crow retorted wearily
If only you had a voice like me
You’d have the benefit of being free.
Once there was a hound
Who never made a sound
His mouth was far too small
And he hardly ate at all.
His master said, I’m glad I found
Such an economical hound.
There was once a one-legged pig
Who couldn’t dance a jig.
He fell upon his tail and slid.
Into the flower bed
But he couldn’t give a fig
He was a real pig.
Yet a long while we watched him rowing . . .
Yet a long while we watched him rowing. Right to the falls
He strained to reach the bank. But the falls
Tore him down in the end. What he feared
Came to pass. His enemy
He did not kill; himself, he lost his life. But
To those who struggled with him he bequeathed
An enemy weakened.
Downfall of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah
1
The city of Sodom and the city of Gomorrah
Can best be thought of just like our own cities.
Like our city Berlin and like our London.
Neither more splendid nor more shabby, neither
Richer, nor yet poorer, uninhabitable
And yet un-leavable, just like London
And Berlin, so were Sodom and Gomorrah.
2
Their sins were like our own
Stale and shameless. With golden scrapers
They scratched their sores and the laurels
Withered when they came into contact
With those foreheads. And laughter
Rose up out of the gardens and out of the factories
Rose smoke.
Now, however, that humanity, in its unending progress . . .
Now, however, that humanity, in its unending progress, was
As the classics predict, so mired in that condition
Where every progress and every new invention
Plunges humanity into ever deeper inhumanity
Language also began to decay, and every sort of communication
Was rendered vain
with overbearing fists
They beat on the stolen table. And yet the seer saw
How their hands dropped from their crumbling joints and how they
Had secretly to stuff them back on. With threatening fingers
They pointed out the victims to their hangmen. But the seer
Saw how they bent down, secretly, groaning, to gather up the rotting fingers
From the floor, with mistrustful wandering eyes.
The seer saw many such things! The listener heard many such things!
Things of which no one spoke!
The dam
This song is in praise of the engineer Charles Howell
Who lived in London, in Baker Street, where he received a telegram
Calling him to the West African administrative headquarters
Along with the commission to build a dam in the southern Congo
At an unnamed spot on the map.
The wrangles over the remuneration took nine days
Were bitterly contested and ended satisfactorily.
But the money, deposited in Barclays Bank
Was never claimed.
This man, who leaves England one foggy morning
In Harwich, accompanied to the ship by four friends and
A Mrs Howell, swiftly married, a conquest made under time pressure
Le
aves
Two clubs with their open fires, newspapers and meals
The morning walk over Tower Bridge to the office
The fishing waters of Scotland, preserved for
The years between fifty and seventy.
He is forty years old now, hopes to be eighty one day, and has but
Ten months to live.
It is not only the getting married that’s hard, building dams is too,
Especially in a country where there are no hotels, where scaffolding
Concrete and steel mesh don’t grow wild, and the labour force
Cannot read (granted
They can’t read the wage lists either!), and marrying
May come easier under the pressure of time, but
Not so with the building of dams.
He set off in a bridal carriage, and now travels on in an ox-cart.
He wages his fights with the local administration
He wins enemies and warrants, he’ll need the latter
The former
Will not see him again.
He does not process alone, he leads a troop
He is general and quartermaster
And at night he works at his designs, according to the stories
Of deceitful folk who claim to have been there.
All for the moneys deposited in Barclays Bank.
Twelve days’ journey from the coast he learns
That he has been cheated by the authorities
In the calculation of his reward: in the place where he is bound
There is a pernicious sickness.
He destroys the message.