by Tom Kuhn
Those who can no longer bear
The misery must band together
And act today, throw off your fate
For tomorrow will be too late.
All or nothing. None or all.
On your own you have no chance.
Guns or chains the choice.
All or nothing. None or all.
Song against war
1
The prole gets freighted off to war
To risk his life and limb.
Why and for whom no one will say
Clearly it’s not for him.
A pox on you all! Fight your own wars!
We’re turning our guns around
To wage a different sort of war
And this one will be for ourselves.
2
The prole is sent to the frontline trench
The generals stay well back.
And when the gents have had their lunch
For him there’s barely a snack.
A pox on you all! Fight your own wars!
We’re turning our guns around
To wage a different sort of war
And this one will be for ourselves.
3
The prole supplies their war machines
For just a fistful of coins
And then they use them to take the lives
Of more proletarian boys.
A pox on you all! Fight your own wars!
We’re turning our guns around
To wage a different sort of war
And this one will be for ourselves.
4
In the end it’s the proles who always pay
Defeated or victorious.
That’s why they’ll plan till Judgement Day
More and more bloody wars for us.
A pox on you all! Fight your own wars!
We’re turning our guns around
To wage a different sort of war
And this one will be for ourselves.
5
The prole is at war for higher stakes
In the bloody war of the classes
He’ll bleed and he’ll pay till the victory that makes
The workers to their own masters.
A pox on you all! Fight your own wars!
We’re turning our guns around
To wage a different sort of war
And this one will be for ourselves.
Song of the United Front
1
Because all folk are human
They need something to eat, and how!
No pretty words will fill their bellies
So bring on the food right now.
By the left, two, three! By the left, two, three!
Comrade, there’s a place for you
In the ranks of the Workers’ United Front
For you’re a worker too.
2
And because all folk are human
They don’t like being kicked in the face.
They don’t want slaves toiling down below
And for bosses there’s no place.
By the left, two, three! By the left, two, three!
Comrade, there’s a place for you
In the ranks of the Workers’ United Front
For you’re a worker too.
3
And because the prole is a prole
No one else can set him free.
It’s the work of the working class alone
To fight for liberty.
By the left, two, three! By the left, two, three!
Comrade, there’s a place for you
In the ranks of the Workers’ United Front
For you’re a worker too.
Resolution
1
Whereas you knew how weak we were and made
Laws so we should evermore be slaves
These laws in future shall be set aside
Because we’ve had enough of being slaves.
Whereas you thereupon will threaten us
With rifles and with cannon we hereby
Resolve from now on we shall fear death less
Than we fear living wretchedly.
2
Whereas we’re hungry and hungry we’ll remain
If we put up with being robbed by you
We’ll show there’s only a pane of glass between
Us and all the good bread we are due.
Whereas you thereupon will threaten us
With rifles and with cannon we hereby
Resolve from now on we shall fear death less
Than we fear living wretchedly.
3
Whereas there are dwelling-paces where you are
While you leave us without a home to go to
We have resolved that now we’ll move in there
Because we’re sick of slumming it down below.
Whereas you thereupon will threaten us
With rifles and with cannon we hereby
Resolve from now on we shall fear death less
Than we fear living wretchedly.
4
Whereas there’s coal in surplus piled up high
While we are freezing cold without the stuff
We have resolved we’ll be the ones that we supply
Because if we do then we’ll be warm enough.
Whereas you thereupon will threaten us
With rifles and with cannon we hereby
Resolve from now on we shall fear death less
Than we fear living wretchedly.
5
Whereas it seems you’ll never work out how
To pay the ones who work a decent rate
We’ll have the factories in our own hands now
Because there’s plenty for us if we throw you out.
Whereas you thereupon will threaten us
With rifles and with cannon we hereby
Resolve from now on we shall fear death less
Than we fear living wretchedly.
6
Whereas nobody’s left who still believes
The government whatever it promises
We have resolved we’ll build ourselves good lives
By being the only ones who govern us.
Whereas you’ll listen to what the cannon say—
No other language will you listen to—
Well then, we’ll have to turn the cannon your way.
Yes, that will be the best thing we can do!
III
CHRONICLES
Questions of a worker who reads
Who built the seven gates of Thebes?
In books you will read the names of kings.
Was it the kings who dragged the stones into place?
And Babylon, so often destroyed
Who rebuilt it so many times? In which of the houses
Of gold-gleaming Lima did the construction workers live?
Where, on that evening when the Chinese Wall was finished
Did the masons go? The great city of Rome
Is full of triumphal arches. Who set them up? Over whom
Did the Caesars triumph? Did Byzantium, so much praised in song
Have only palaces for its inhabitants? Even in fabled Atlantis
That night when the ocean engulfed it, the drowning
Roared out for their slaves.
Young Alexander conquered India.
Was he alone?
Caesar defeated the Gauls.
Did he not have so much as a cook with him?
Philip of Spain wept when his armada
Went down. Did no one else weep?
Frederick the Second was victorious in the Seven Years’ War. Who else
Prevailed?
On every page a victory.
Who cooked the victory banquet?
Every ten years a great man.
Who paid the bills?
So many reports
So many questions.
Empedocles’ shoe
1
When
Empedocles of Agrigentum
Had garnered honour amongst his fellow citizens, along with
The infirmities of age
He decided to die. But since he
Loved some of them, by whom in turn he too was loved
He did not want to be brought down before their eyes, but
Rather to become naught.
He invited them on an outing, not every one
This one or that he left out, so that in the choice
As in the whole undertaking
Chance might play its part.
They climbed Etna.
The effort of the climb
Made for silence. No one missed
Wise words. At the top they
Caught their breath, their heartbeats steadied
They concerned themselves with the view, glad to have reached their goal.
Unnoticed, their teacher left them.
When they began to talk again, at first they noticed
Nothing, only later
Here or there a word was missing, and they cast about for him.
But he had long since walked off round the summit
In no great hurry. Once
He stopped and heard how
Way off beyond the summit
Their conversation started up again. The words themselves
Could no longer be made out: it was the onset of dying.
As he stood at the crater
His face averted now, not wanting to know more of
What no longer concerned him, the old man bent down slowly
Carefully slipped from his foot the shoe and tossed it smiling
A few paces off, so that it should not be
Found too soon, yet still in good time
Before it had rotted. Only then
Did he step to the crater. When his friends
Came home without him, looking out for him
Through the next weeks and months, bit by bit
So his dying began, as he had wished it. Still
Some held out, waiting for him, whereas others
Gave him up for dead. Still
Some stored up their questions for his return, whereas others
Sought the solution themselves. As slowly as the clouds
Drift from the sky, unchanging, diminishing merely
Ceding slowly when you look away, distant
When you seek them once more, fused and confused now with others
So he receded from their ordinary ways, in an ordinary way.
Then a rumour started.
He had not died, he had not been mortal, they said.
Mystery enveloped him. People suggested
There was something beyond the earthly, the tide of human affairs
Might after all sometimes be altered: such was their chatter.
But at this time the shoe was found, the leather shoe
Tangible, worn, earthly! Left there for those who
When they cannot see, turn at once to belief.
So the end of his days
Had after all been natural. He had died like anyone else.
2
Others however describe these events
Differently: in fact this Empedocles had
Sought to secure for himself honour as a god and
By his mysterious disappearance, his crafty
Leap, unwitnessed, into Etna, to establish the myth that he was
Not merely human, not subject to
Mortal laws of decay. But that
His shoe had caught him out, falling into the hands of men
(Some go further, the crater itself, angered at
Such a beginning, simply spat
Out the degenerate’s shoe). But we would rather believe:
If he did not indeed untie the shoe, then it was just that
He’d forgotten our foolishness, not thought how we would hasten
To make what’s obscure obscurer, and how we would rather believe
Some far-fetched story than seek a sufficient cause. As for the mountain
It wasn’t outraged at anyone’s carelessness, nor did it believe
Some mortal wanted to dupe us into honouring him as a god
(For the mountain has no beliefs and isn’t concerned with us)
Rather, spitting fire as it always does, it threw out
The shoe for us, and so his pupils
Already busy scenting a mystery
All too busy spinning profound deep metaphysics!
Suddenly grasped in their hands, troubled, that tangible shoe
Worn, made of leather, earthly.
Legend of the origin of the book Tao Te Ching on Lao-tze’s road into exile
1
When he’d turned seventy, his health was frail
The teacher thought a quiet life his due
For in his country goodness had begun to fail
And evil once again was breaking through.
And he buckled on his shoe.
2
And he bundled up the things he needed:
Not much. And yet the bundle wasn’t light.
There was the little book he liked to read in
And the pipe he always smoked at night.
White bread for a midday bite.
3
He looked across the valley, then forgot it
As he turned onto the mountain track.
And his ox took pleasure in the untouched pastures
Chewing as it bore the old man on its back.
Satisfied the pace was slack.
4
Yet on the fourth day in the mountains
A customs man stepped out to bar his way:
“Precious items to declare?” “No, nothing.”
And the boy who led the ox spoke: “Learning doesn’t pay.”
There wasn’t any more to say.
5
But a fancy moved the man to question
“What does your master know that others don’t?”
The boy: “That gentle water, if in motion
In time can overcome unyielding stone.
So might, you see, is overthrown.”
6
So as not to lose out on the daylight
The boy began to urge the ox along.
The three had all but disappeared behind a pine tree
When a sudden urgency possessed our man
And he called: “Hey you! Hold on!”
7
“What’s all this about the water, father?”
“What’s it to you?” The old man paused below the peak.
The man: “I may be just a poor tollkeeper
But I need to know about the mighty and the weak.
If you know who’ll win, then speak.
8
You can’t just keep it quiet and walk away.
We’ve got paper here, and pens and ink.
Write it down! Dictate it to this boy!
I live just there: there’s food and drink.
Say, what do you think?”
9
The old man looked back over his shoulder
At the tollman: patchwork jacket and no shoes.
And his forehead just a single furrow.
Oh, this was no winner he was talking to.
Muttered to himself: “And you?”
10
To turn down such a polite suggestion
The old man was, it seems, simply too old.
Aloud he said: “All those who put the question
Deserve an answer.” And the boy: “Besides, it’s turning cold.”
“Good. Let’s get the beds unrolled.”
11
Down from his weary ox the sage descended
And the couple wrote for seven long days
And the tollman brought their meals (and so they wouldn’t be offended
He only cursed quite quietly at the smugglers’ ways).
The work was done without delays.
12
And the boy
one morning gave the customs man
Full eighty-one sayings gathered in a tract
And thanking the man for all the gifts he’d made them
They took the path around that pine tree at the back.
Say, was that not a gracious act?
13
But let’s not only praise the ancient master
Whose name adorns the famous manuscript!
For first you must extract the wisdom from the wise man.
Therefore let’s praise the tollman for his bit:
Demanding that the work be writ.
Visit to the banished poets
When, in a dream, he entered the hut of the banished
Poets—which you may find alongside the hut
Where the banished teachers live (from there he heard
Disputation and laughter)—at the entrance
Ovid approached, and said to him quietly:
“Better not sit down yet. You’re not yet dead. Who can know
If you won’t one day go back? Even if nothing has changed
Except yourself.” But then, solace in his eyes
Po-Chü-i came over and smiled: “This is a rigour
Earned by anyone who even once called injustice by its name.”
And his friend Tu-fu said softly: “You understand, banishment
Is not the place to unlearn arrogance.” But, more worldly
Shabby old Villon joined them and asked: “How many
Doors has the house where you live?” And Dante took him aside
And, grasping him hard by the arm, he murmured: “Your verses
Are teeming with error, friend, just think
What manner of men are gathered against you!” Voltaire called over:
“Keep an eye on the pennies, they’ll starve you out else!”
“And mix a few jokes in!” cried Heine. “That won’t help”
Growled Shakespeare, “when James arrived
Even I was prevented from writing.” —“If your case comes to trial
Take a rogue for your lawyer!” counselled Euripides